Yesterday, I was changing the belts for my power steering and A/C on my 03 WRX because my power steering was cutting out due to a worn belt not catching every now and then. I went over to my local Kragen with my old belts to get replacements. Well, they had the belt for the power steering pump, but didn't have the same size for the A/C. The person I talked to said that my belt is a 35 1/4 and that they only had 35 and 35 1/2, but that the 35 would work just fine. I was reluctant at first, but eventually took her word for it because she had looked up my year, make, and model, so it seemed to me that this part had come up as being compatible.

I went back home and began to put on the A/C belt, but it seemed impossible to get it to fit on the the pulleys and I didn't want to pry it on, so I loosened the tensioner more and more trying to get the belt on. Because I seem to learn by breaking, I ended up loosening the tensioner too much and broke the hard plastic piece that the long bolt on the tensioner screws into that is integrated into the A/C pulley (http://www.subaruparts.com/diag/?mod...category=732-1 part #73134).

So last night I ordered a replacement part (the part listed above) and an OEM belt, but today I started thinking about whether or not I need to order a whole new pulley assembly, instead of just that part. Would it be unhealthy for my car to have just that one new part?

Also, now that I'm thinking about this, what I ended up doing was putting on the belt for the power steering pulley, without the A/C belt on the engine. Is it unhealthy to have just one out of the two belts on?

Thanks

-John

 

It's ok to have just the one belt. The AC belt doesn't do anything when the AC isn't running, and not having it is not detrimental as long as you don't need the AC.
If the tensioner bracket is available as a separate part it should be ok to just change that if the pulley is otherwise ok and undamaged.
In the future you should just go buy the dealer belts to begin with, they aren't that much more expensive than the aftermarket ones and the quality is higher.

 

What about those Goodyear gator belts?