When is the right time to replace a serpentine belt, apart from when it snaps? The maintenance schedule does not include it as a periodic replacement but it is a check item every 2 years.

Mine has done nearly 60,000 miles on my Sirion 1.5sx 2008, which is a long way if you think about it – wouldn’t want to walk it. So I replaced it yesterday. It was looking shiny and buffed and had lost its natural black colour and it was looking like a barber’s razor strop. When I got it off I folded it and there were only very faint signs of cracking and crazing, which indicates it would have lasted longer for sure, but was certainly past its best.

I guess the answer to my question is to replace it at 60,000 miles approximately, or 5 years. Waiting for it to snap will cause a breakdown on the side of the road – and you know it will be raining when it does let go - and at less than £20 for a belt, why wouldn’t you change it?

As for doing the change it was easy. The adjuster is a manual one on my car and once that was wound in, the adjuster pinch bolt and alternator attachment bolt slackened off, and the alternator nudged inwards to give some free play the belt just fell off. There isn’t a lot of room to spare but enough to avoid bleeding knuckles and cussing, and threading the new one on was very straightforward and once it was settled into the grooves it was a case of winding the adjuster out to where it needed to be and then tighten up the adjuster pinch bolt and alternator attachment bolt. NB. I did have to raise the RH front of the car to slide under to slacken the alternator attachment bolt.

The maintenance book states a torque setting to apply on the adjuster to get the tension correct but there wasn’t any way a torque wrench was going to fit, so I measured the length of the adjuster thread prior to removal and set it back to that. I also did a twist test on the belt and kept that ‘thought’ in my head and did it again with the new belt. I have done a hundred miles since and nothing odd has happened so it must be good. I will check again the next time the bonnet comes up.

So there we have it.