thinkbsd

Hi All!

First off I just want to say thanks to all who keep this forum active. I tend to use this forum for general problems.

Car:

I have a C240 2002 Mercedes Benz sedan

Today my girlfriend took the car out and she called me while on the road stating the power steering has gone out while driving on the freeway. I traveled about 45 minutes to where she was and at first I thought I was looking into purchasing a new alternator because after searching this site I found a few threads stating this is a known issue/problem with my car. So after calling AAA to come out to two the car the AAA guy automatically knew what the problem was. He lifted the hood and saw the -- okay I'm not car savvy, he noticed the belt had come off the pulley? and that I would need a plastic part called an 'idle pulley'? I mean it just looks like a plastic part that holds the belt to some kind of rotating device.

Should I attempted to find the missing part and reattach them myself? The guy was explaining it as if it would take me 10 minutes to do the entire job but again, I don't know that much about cars and I don't want to overpay Mercedes Benz if I have to take into the dealer for something I could potentially do myself.

Any ideas and thoughts would be much appreciated!

Thanks!

SeaCoupe

Perhaps some on this board will attempt to help you movement by movement. When I tell you that it is likely you need to replace the idler pulley, will you be able to confirm that is the part you need by visual identification? Do you know the size of the bolt/torx head holding said pulley to the mount? Do you have deep sockets to reach the head?

I'm on the side of advising you to take it to an independent Mercedes Mechanic. Based on your wording and description of events I wonder if you would be able to order the correct parts from the dealerships parts dept.

I hope you don't find this arrogant. Were you my neighbor I would install it for you. But from reading above I fear you will fall into a trap of doing more damage than cure. If you are willing to provide some photos it will be easier to help you, but...The indie will do it for cheaper and may help you to find other wear items that should be replaced.

E

Glyn M Ruck

+1

Buellwinkle

Is it easy to do, yes, can you mess it up, probably not that bad, can you hurt yourself severly, absolutely.

Here's the deal, putting the new pulley in is not hard, just remove the old, put in the new, I assume you have tools, if not, the proper single socket at Sears is a few bucks. Now here comes the hard part, you have to route the belt, there should be a diagram in the owners manual but you need to turn the tensioner bolt so you can put the belt on. The amount of tension required to do this means you need a breaker bar that's about 2' long. Let that go for a second while putting the belt on and it will snap back at you with great force. As a beginner, have someone hold the breaker bar while you put on the belt, takes a very short amount of time to get the belt on. From my experience, most mechanics want $50 to change a belt (not including the cost of the belt), they may also want a few bucks more to change the pulley.

Glyn M Ruck

Here is the belt diagram: