Hello Everyone,

My HHR is a 2008 with 265K miles. My utility knife slipped out of my hand last summer and slid down the front of the A/C cooler, causing the neatest hissing sound, so the A/C system has been serviced within the last year.

The A/C quit working a couple of weeks ago (I haven't even had time to look into why), and today the battery light came on (the charging/starting scan at Advance Auto said the alternator was not returning any voltage). Since both components are driven by the same belt, I was wondering what the odds are that the belt or tensioner is faulty instead of the individual A/C and alternator components.

Any thoughts?

 

Pretty simple to open the hood and look. Sounds like the belt is gone to me.

 

Holy Cow! I wouldn't have thought the engine would have run normally without the belt, or that the battery would have lasted as long as it has, but sure enough...no belt. Lol

 

Replace the idler pulley and tensioner with the belt.

 

Hard to believe that the person at Advance Auto didn't look to see if the belt was there.

 

Strangely I'm not surprised.

 

^^^ This

 

At least they knew where the battery was.