So, to respond to your diagnosis, it is not the tensioner pulley because my boyfriend spun all the
pulleys and the only one that did not spin freely was the power steering pump pulley. The serpentine belt is tight. I felt it too. Definitely not a half inch pull or more (1/2-inch play in the belt says loose). I bought this car from someone who completely lied to me about everything and had me pay the full price of 1,600. The first day I had the car I had to change the serpentine belt because it was all used up and old and screeching. It was an easy fix. Screeching stopped. Obvious fix. Then the check engine light came on at about 50 miles of driving it. So, I'm almost 100 percent sure they knew about all the problems but knew they wouldn't get more than $1,000 for it so they went to a shop or auto zone and had the light cleared right before we met for the test drive. If I had known that I had to 1. Replace the belt $80 2. Replace the alternator $200 3. The most annoying one is the one that we can't figure out. And
4. Engine light was on. It coded for a misfire in cylinder 1. Maybe letting a misfire go for so long and then lying about the true condition of the engine(putting it as a 9/10---9 out of 10 on the car sales app)contributed to this mystery problem when we could have fixed it when we did the belt. I know a misfire, bad spark plugs, and or bad coil pack can tweak your engine/cause problems if left unfixed. Also, my mechanic found that my spark plugs to cylinder 1 were caked in oil?Also around the same time the screeching started I was getting ready to go somewhere in my car and noticed near the front left wheel all my power steering fluid just randomly leaked out. Did not think anything about it because I bought some more fluid, filled to line, and it never did that again nor was the level of PS fluid rapidly lowering either. I know this is long but I wanted u to know everything to properly diagnose or guess or however you do. Lol. Wait! 1 more thing. The 10 amp fuse for the air conditioning clutch/loss of power fuse is blowing out often.E.G. Every 1 to 2 days although recently it hasn't blown in a week. That is why I believe it is something to do with the ac compressor.A bad/failing one, bad pulley (are there pulleys on that thing? Like the idler pulley is also not the problem. Tested it. Spins freely. The power steering pump pulley is broken. There is a piece of the pulley that is actually missing like somebody was adjusting it and pried a piece off accidentally. Would that make a constant screeching? That is our newest find. But this is what we DO know. It is one of the components of the serpentine belt. Because we took the belt off completely and then started the car and lo and behold there was NO screeching or squealing. So this is everything that is going on. Now I'm just waiting for my bf to put the belt back on so I can record the squealing sound for you. Please lmk if you have any new advice now that I'm pretty sure I included everything. Thank you so much for trying to help me figure out the problem.
Monday, August 28th, 2023 AT 9:35 AM