Sorry, that's a slightly ambiguous title, as I'm after a bit of clarification as to naming this thing!
I have a Y-reg, 2001, V40. It's the 1.9 diesel engine, 115bhp.
Whilst driving at the weekend, suddenly the steering "felt a little heavier" and the battery warning light came off.

Looking under the bonnet with my more knowledgeable brother-in-law, we saw a belt had slipped off its pulley wheels - he called this the drive belt. Obviously this drives the alternator and <something> to do with the power steering. Is this definitely the drive belt? A further look, and an RAC man, showed that (one of) the tensioner wheels had shattered.

Now, there's a diagram of this belt on the top of the engine cover, with "exchange" printed on it, and dated at the last (main dealer!) service. That was at about 58k miles. Should the tensioner wheels have been replaced at the same time - do I have something to moan about with the dealer...?

Many thanks for any help!

faulty

 

Not unless it was making the noise at the time.

 

There was a slight noise just preceding the warning light coming on; at the time, I wasn't sure if that was from the engine, or having just crossed a bridge section. We were on the motorway (i.e. equivalent of the freeway?) at the time.

The belt we looked at was completely free of any of the pulley wheels; maybe "slipped off" sounds a bit like an understatement of what was actually going on.

And yes, in my original post I put:
when of course I mean the warning light came on.

 

I've just checked the log for this service too (can't find the full schedule mind), and the dealer has stamped for doing the 7 year or 70k mile and 8 year or 80k mile service at the same time. This was March 2008, so the car was just under 7 years old, and on 59.5k miles. Can anyone confirm if either of those services specifies that the drive belt should be changed?

Thanks again...

 

The drive belt gets changed when it is cracking.