Serpentine Belt falls off - '98 Voyager 3.0 V6

Our 1998 Voyager (3.0 liter Mitsubishi V6) has gone thru 3 serpentine
belts in the past few years, the last one lasted 8 months before it
skips a groove and starts to edge it's way off the pulleys. The outer
edge of the belt (towards the passenger side of the car) starts to
fray. I put one on and shops have done the last two.

I had a new tensioner (with belt) installed ($190) by a shop less than
3000 miles (8 months) ago. Another local shop says there is a TSB
about some "tensioner snow shield" that may help. A search on Alldata
does pull up TSG 07-01-99.

http://www.alldata.com/TSB/47/984707ET.html

A search of the 'net has shown others with this problem and not all of
them had the problem cured by this "tensioner snow shield".
Apparently water spashes up and causes the belt to fall off, in some
cases. I'm also thinking it may be a pulley alignment issue, but am
not sure. It looks OK by eyeball, but we know that is not a precise
measurement.

My question is, anyone out there familiar with this problem and what
did you do to make your serpentine belt stay where it belongs? Belts
which require replacement every 3/4 year does not sound right.

 

Ken

That has been one of the litany of problems I've had with my '95 Town
and Country - Had the belt fall off once and didn't even make it home
from the dealer before it fell off again! Had them pick up the towing
charge! Tensioner replaced almost every time. No apparent fraying of the
belt.

Somewhere in all these postings, I did get a reply to a posting I made
where the text of the service bulletin was posted that suggested this
shield in case of snow - seems Chrysler didn't include just plain water
and a problem causing the belt to fall off. Hitting standing water in
blinding rainstorms used to be a guarentee for the belt to come off.

Cross my fingers, I haven't had a belt fall off in a couple of years now
- but it happened with such amazing regularity some years back that I
got the CSAA extended plan where I could get a free 100 mile tow -
needed to use it a couple of times

Weather man predicts really heavy rain for the next few days - I cross
my fingers..

Regards
Peter