Busted Serpentine Belt and Power Steering Woes

So in the middle of Big Bend National Park, my serpentine belt snapped and took out my tensioner pulley and my idler pulley. I managed to get a replacement for all three from O'Reilly's and done back to the East coast. However, when checking in with my mechanic, he said the belt looks too tight (you can see the ribs from the backside. There's no way to adjust the tensioner, so do I need to replace it when I swap belts, or is there a break in period? The other issue is that my power steering pump is now leaking at the shaft. My hard line has a light leak but reservoir level seems fine. I've found little info on rebuilding them and IDparts has them for about 140. Should I swap both line and pump at the same time?

I can't speak to the PS pump, but if your car is the '00 in your sig, and you have AC, the serp belt you want is 1660 mm in length.

I experienced that rib-showing-through look when I had replaced my serp belt with one that was actually too long (1750 mm IIRC).
1660 is what you want. Continental makes one, part# 6PK1660. No wear-through evident on mine after a few hundred miles.

Buying just about any thing for your Dub from O'Reilly's or Auto Bone is a bad idea. Not being able to even sell you the correct belt certainly is a new level of fail for them.

It sounds like you have the wrong belt on your car. You were fortunate in finding parts that did “fit” ....sort of. At least you were able to drive home.

If the pump is leaking I would just replace it, a new one from idparts is a great choice, I wouldn’t replace the line unless it was leaking. A new pump and a new belt should have you back to like new condition.

I would keep an eye on and an ear tuned to any unusual sounds coming from the engine bay. The tensioner and the pulley are probably cheap quality parts and thus prone to failure. If you don’t want to replace them again now they might last till the next timing belt change.

icanreachit said:

So in the middle of Big Bend National Park, my serpentine belt snapped and took out my tensioner pulley and my idler pulley. I managed to get a replacement for all three from O'Reilly's and done back to the East coast. However, when checking in with my mechanic, he said the belt looks too tight (you can see the ribs from the backside. There's no way to adjust the tensioner, so do I need to replace it when I swap belts, or is there a break in period? The other issue is that my power steering pump is now leaking at the shaft. My hard line has a light leak but reservoir level seems fine. I've found little info on rebuilding them and IDparts has them for about 140. Should I swap both line and pump at the same time?

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Well, it got you home!
When you need to go OEM is for things like this. Hoses, belts, alts, any reman anything, and just about everything at those box stores are absolute garbage.
As for your PS, where is it leaking from the hard line? Might just be the fitting that is not seated properly due to the impact of the belt snapping.
As for your pump, 2000 jetta pump is rebuildable. If your having your mech do the work, just get a new one, will be cheaper. I have rebuilt them before and seals for this are like $2 a pop. You should see if the shaft is bent though, spin it and see if it wobbles or use a dial indicator if you can. Just saying, if you have the tools, you can fix this for basically nothing, well if the shaft is strait but if you dont have those kinda tools, just get a new pump, belt, from ID
The tentioners are probably fine from autocvnt store.

i would say that they sold you the right belt as it did fit but clearly not a proper fit. Belts should NOT be a hit or miss fitment but at these stores they are. Size increments dictate that a belt will either NOT fit at all too tight or to slack.

Thanks everyone! I will swap the belt and see if the leak lessens in severity. I've never seen a leak "go-away" so I'll start with the rebuild kit and take photos (as I haven't seen a write-up, and I'd like to contribute to what I'm making good use of). I'll keep an eye on the new belt and if it shows any wear I'll swap out the tensioner as well. (IDparts has just the tensioner without the full pulley & mount so my wallet appreciates that).
Found a good AUDI write up that looks like it'll be a good starting place for the DIY.

As far as the hard line leaks, they are all light, no visible rust, so for now I'll keep the line. I'm not anticipating a catastrophic failure from this. Should I be?

icanreachit said:

I'm not anticipating a catastrophic failure from this. Should I be?

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Nah, your fine, even running out of fluid is not going to trash the pump, its not the good for its life span but getting to the next location for some fluid is not going to kill anything. Just use the proper fluid and if you do top it off with some generic fluid, flush and change it soon as you can as your rack will start to leak. vw rack seals do NOT like to have foreign fluids!

Belt swapped with a 1660 Continental. Length was identical, so I'm suspecting that the belt was just of poor quality. PS pump no longer leaking so I'm going to leave that one alone. The leak has now spread to the coupling on the rack though so I'll get a new HP line for that system next week.

Ol'Rattler said:

Buying just about any thing for your Dub from O'Reilly's or Auto Bone is a bad idea.

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Unless of course you are stuck in the middle of Big Bend National Park... and it gets you home.

belome said:

Unless of course you are stuck in the middle of Big Bend National Park... and it gets you home.

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And to be fair, that was still a 4 hour drive to Odessa just to get the part. On Christmas Eve.

Just ordered Edelmann 92333 for the HP side of the PS. Will flush with CHF 202 and report back. Then on to motor mounts. This thing has been in storage 3 out of the past 5 years so it's a bit of a restoration.