My car has been making a lot noise for a long time since a little before my last oil change, but was getting quite a bit worse the last few weeks. I dropped by the dealership and asked the service manager to listen to it. It started sounding expensive and wasn't clear if it could be covered by my extended warranty. He was talking berrings, replacing the air condition motor (it was going on all the time even though the air conditor wasn't going on), faulty switches causing the air conditioner to go on etc. It was sound in the 600-1000 range. So i said thanks and I'll call back for an appt. So I took into my mechanic, to get my oil changed again and for him to listen to it.

Anyway I told him about the air condition motor going on all the time even though the ac wasn't on. He immediatley asked have you had the defog on, and i had because it's been really wet here. He said the ac goes on when you have the defog on (i guess to remove moisture?). So we did a little test to prove that. Whenever the ac motor went on it got more noisy, even though it was noisy without it. So he popped the lid, looked at my engine belt and said that needs replacing,, so why don't we replace that and see what happens. So he changed my oil and replaced the belt. I looked at it after he had it off and it was soooo bad, cracked, even holes right thru, was definitely about to break on me (wonder what that does to the engine). It was amazing easy to replace (he said that's why mechanics never let the customers in to watch because then they can't charge them all that money :>). Anyway the car sounds great, runs better, when the ac motor comes on it just sounds like an electric motor not like how it did, and the total cost was $80 including oil and belt!!!!!