Don’t Get Technical With Me

We took the Miata back to the dealer on Tues­day for them to adjust the acces­sory belts to elim­i­nate the squeal. They almost got it. We aren’t tak­ing it back to Colum­bia for them to have another crack at it. When the ser­vice rep returned the car Donna ques­tioned him on why it squealed and what did they do to fix it. He tried to explain that they had to adjust the belt by mak­ing it tighter so it wouldn’t slip. But that they had to be care­ful that they didn’t tighten it too much or they could ruin the bear­ing in the acces­sories. He said if it still does it, just bring it back (I guess he thinks we live around the corner.)

It still squeals, but only briefly when shift­ing while dri­ving the car spirit­edly. When you floor it with the A/C on, the A/C will cut out until you let up to shift, at which point the A/C clutch re-engages and chirps the belt. We didn’t notice it until later in the week and we for sure aren’t going to take it back to them. When I get Clunk & Thunk to help me with my shock instal­la­tion we’ll try and tighten it up a bit more.

I wish I had thought of it at the time Mr. Lazy­wrench was explain­ing their belt adjust­ment period, because I should have asked, “So, what you are say­ing is that after mak­ing over 800,000 Miatas, Mazda’s ser­vice man­ual for car says that to adjust the acces­sory belt ten­sion, You need to make the belt so tight that they don’t squeal, but not so tight that you ruin the bearings.

From a Miata Forum mem­ber red-in-la (I removed the met­ric stuff.)
Drive Belt Deflec­tion Check
1. Ver­ify the drive belt deflec­tion when the engine is cold, or at least 30 min after the engine has stopped. Apply mod­er­ate pres­sure 22 ft/lb mid­way between the spec­i­fied pulleys.

What do you think? The tech­ni­cian didn’t have the right tool so he just winged it? Or man­ual, who reads the manual?

We went to the New Moon for break­fast this morn­ing instead of Sun­day to beat the crowd. We had two muffins and a bot­tled water.

The above num­bers reflect tomorrow’s meals as well because we two extra muffins for Sunday’s break­fast. If we eat out for lunch or sup­per tomor­row I’ll change the totals.