whistling belt - is it a problem?

[ber55ber55]

Well when my car is cold and I start it in the morning, or when its cooler and i start it, i get this load whistling noise that seems to be coming from the belt area. When its hot out though, or I just ran the car and am at a light....the sound is totally gone. Is this something to worry about? Is a bearing or just a cold belt? Will belt dressing help this issue? The noise just makes it sound like a old ass honda beater. Let me know what can be done to make this go away. Thanks

[nizmainiac]

if its screeching its probably just a loose belt

[saj3n]

i'd replace belts, pretty easy job, and should cost you no more than $30

http://www.bmwe34.net/e34main/maintenance/gen_maintenance/v-belts.htm


It is possible to cause a bit of problems, depending which belt it is. It could snap, resulting in loss of power steering, water pump, altenator etc... Or it could be the A/C belt, and that's all that will stop working until belt is replaced. However, if it is the A/C belt, and it does get caught in the other belt, you may have problems. I'd pop the hood, check to see if there's any play in the belts while they are moving, engine running. I'd also check to see if they are cracked in any way, with the engine off of course. While you'r checking the belts, make sure the dust covers are on the pulleys. If not, this could cause the bearings within the pulleys to go bad, possibly causing the whistling, and eventually a pulley failure.

For the M60:

#'s 6 & 3 are the pulley's to check the covers, this is the belt for the Water pump/altenator

http://www.realoem.com/bmw/diagrams/c/j/6.png


A/C Belt:

http://www.realoem.com/bmw/diagrams/c/y/7.png
These would be my first steps.