That $40 serpentine belt tool turned out to be junk

I picked up one of those cheap belt tools from a parts store in Tulsa and it stripped out the tensioner pulley on a 2015 F-150 before I even got it tight. Cost me another hour and a $60 pulley to fix what should have been a 15 minute job. Any of you running a specific brand or trick for getting tension off without that flimsy garbage?

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sullivan.spencer6d ago

Swear half the money I've spent on "specialty" tools over the years has just been buying new parts for stuff I broke with the last one. That belt tool sounds exactly like the one I got from a pawn shop, thing bent sideways on a Chevy 350 and I ended up using a breaker bar and a prayer. My trick now is to just take the belt off the easiest pulley first, not the tensioner, and then use a long ratchet with a wobble socket for the tension arm. Still managed to snap a belt tensioner bolt last month doing it that way, so maybe I'm not the guy to ask, ha. Just glad I'm not the only one who's turned a quick fix into a whole afternoon project.