Does this 2002 Porsche Boxster Diagnosis Make Sense?
 

Hey guys, just wanted to check with this community on a recent diagnosis my mechanic gave me on my 02 986.

I'm not sure if I trust my mechanic at this point. I've had so many repairs it's just unreasonable. And now they are telling me I need to replace another major part...

So symptoms:

My car started "squeaking" repeatedly a week or two after it was serviced by said mechanic. The serpentine belt was replaced. I'm thinking this could be a bad belt install or something... basically whenever the car is on, it repeatedly makes a high pitched "squeak" at regular intervals. This is intermittent... sometimes it doesn't squeak at all, and at other times it squeaks VERY loudly to the point where I can hear it on the highway in the cabin.

Most of the stuff I've read on this talks about the belt and not the actual pulley/alternator.

The mechanic is telling me I have to get the alternator and pulley replaced for $900. They told me parts were $550 and labor was $350. I found said parts for $150 on eBay, so at least it will total $500 when I provide parts.

Could a bad/failing alternator even cause this symptom (squeaking?) Does this make any sense or are they taking advantage of my ignorance?

They made it sound like my car could break down in the middle of the road, though this minor squeaking issue started over a month ago. It hasn't had any actual effect on the vehicle's performance, so far as I can tell.

Also as a side note, my brakes squeak like mad. I just replaced them and they're good, but they sometimes squeak really badly, especially when I brake in reverse. How can I fix this? The mechanic tried spraying lubricant in there and it was good until I went to a car wash a couple weeks later.

Thank you guys in advance, if any of you are in the DFW area, please PM me and we'll get in touch. I want to be more involved with other 986 owners

A lot of the 986's came with a declutching alternator pulley that can make one Hell of a din when it goes bad. The good news is that you can buy the pulley seperately for less than $100, the bad news is that it requires a special tool (about $30 or so) to get it off.

http://www.americanenginesco.com/med...e8ec1087_m.jpg

i posted a thread where I thought it may be my DMF starting to rattle. but found that it was the alternator pulley not working. the one way slip was broken and acted like conventional pulley. during deceleration, the alternator momentum and the crank was playing havoc with the belt tensioner. In my case, it was not squeaking.
I'm guessing that if your car is squeaking, you need to check all the components that the serpentine belt drives; the water pump, alternator, three rollers, power steering pump and the AC.
as for my car, I took the access plate behind the seats off and started the car to see/hear the problem.
once I removed the belt and try to wiggle the alternator pulley, it was obvious that the one way clutch was not working.
I also spun the rollers (3 of them ) to see/hear if the bearing was dry. good for me that the rollers were good. (they cost 2X the alternator pulley. I had local Porsche dealer do the water pump few months earlier so I knew that was OK. but checked it for play anyways.
spun the power steering and the AC pulleys as well as wiggle them for any play. all OK.

I got the pulley from Pelican Parts (45$) and the pulley tool from ebay for 17$
little bit of penetrating oil did the trick.
there's also YouTube on the pulley. it appears that most of the new cars have this. on one of the YouTube, it did mention that if the cap on the front of the pulley is missing, you may be in for a rough time trying to remove the pulley.

Pull the panel behind the seats, pull the belt off and inspect each of the pulleys the belt goes over for play, spin freely, unusual wear. Look at the belt for unusual wear. Draw a diagram of the route of the belt before you take it off.

Did you use the anti-chatter pads when replacing the brake pads? Resurface the rotors? Bed in the brakes?

Has anyone looked into replacing 986 metal pulley rollers with the new plastic ones?