TwoC400s

I changed my serpentine belt, tensioner, and idler pulleys today.

What a goat rope.

I had initially attempted to do this a couple of weekends ago but gave up because I couldn't get access to the pulley behind the intercooler fluid reservoir.

Let me tell you even knowing what I know now, I would take a couple of deep breaths (and shots of Bourbon )before attempting this job again. Which is funny, because I WILL be doing this again on my wife's car.

One thing to note, the Febi-Bilstein idler pulley uses a T-10 torx head bolt and not the Mercedes spec E-12 Etorx bolt.

I could find NO way to get a T-10 bit behind the intercooler reservoir, so MB spec part, or the Gates replacement part are (in my book) required for that pulley.

I put the Febi pulley on the driver's side mount without issue.

MB2timer

Pain
In
The
A**
??
Or bread used in middle eastern flatbread dishes?

TwoC400s

I could not find any soft, warm, delicious flatbread ANYWHERE in my engine bay ( try as I might).

So I'll leave it to your skills of deductions as to the true meaning of PITA.

W205C43PFL

How many miles on your ride again, OP?

TwoC400s

66k miles currently.

9 years (and a few months) since my car was built, fairly certain it had the original belt, pulleys and tensioner.

My wife's car is the same age, but with double the miles.

W205C43PFL

I see, good preventative maintenance for sure.

Darrington

I’m about the same mileage and year, guess I need to look into this…

TwoC400s

I would look into a set of e-torx swivel sockets and or an e-torx pass-through wrench/socket set.

I found them both useful.

Darrington

Cool, thanks for the advice. In terms of ordering parts, is it just the 3 parts, or other components / consumables? I’m sure there’s a YouTube video on it somewhere too!

TwoC400s

The belt, tensioner and TWO idler pulleys. The MB parts are kinda obscenely priced, so I went with Gates idlers, INA tensioner, and Continental belt.

You can use the Febi/Bilstein brand idler pulley on the driver's side, but I couldn't get a normal Torx bit back to where the mount is for the passenger side. The Gates idler uses a factory style e-torx head bolt, and I used the pass through socket and ratcheting wrench on that one.

Darrington

Awesome, thanks for the info.

TwoC400s

When I do my wife's car I'm planning on making a youtube video