Tensioner Pulley left me stranded in the South of France!

As some will be aware, I've just been down to St Tropez with my son (to join a mate) on holiday. Had the usual couple of issues - water washer pipe came off inside the inner wing (20 minute job before breakfast to fix that) & passenger door mechanism microswitch broke - new Audi TT replacement mechanism now on order, as well as running out of fuel on the way to the beach :floor: BUT the nightmare of the holiday was the aux belt tensioner pulley failing, whizzing off into the engine compartment at 80mph. By mid holiday we returned from the beach one day to the car and as soon as I fired it up I noticed a change in engine noise - like a loud ssshhhhhhhh noise. Knowing how windy and dusty it is parked on the beach I thought - hmm - dust in a bearing. Once back up at mon maison, the next morning I did some investigation with a home made stethoscope. The tensioner pulley was the culprit. I'd stripped the airbox out to get better access and gave the thing a good blast several times with WD40. Noise instantly cured and I'm hoping that's the end of that - monitor over the coming days. Saturday comes around and my mate Dave needs running back to Nice airport to get back to Blighty. Soon as we set off, noise reappears. So another good blast round that area and we're back in the game. I'm now thinking to myself - this is not good, we have a 70 mile drive each way and then on Tuesday, we have to drive 1100 miles back to the UK Dropped Dave off at Nice late afternoon and on the way back it starts again. Blast again with the WD and all seems good. I'm thinking - well if we can get a new tensioner pulley from Porsche on Monday morning, I can bob down the supermarket, buy a socket set and fit it myself. Minutes after passing the Cannes exit on the Autoroute I hear a knock and the dash lights up like a Christmas tree - Oh Dear, Game over. Fortunately we were metres from the next exit, so I knocked the engine off and freewheeled all the way up the slip road grinding to a halt at the peage barrier. Lad has to quickly jump out and push the car through before it comes down on the car. We pulled over at the roadside, donned our jaune gilets and erected our triangle. Within minutes I've diagnosed the pulley bearing has totally seized. The tensioner pulley runs anticlockwise, so when the pulley locked solid it then undid the sleeve nut it sits on that holds it on. Once the nut came undone, the pulley wizzed off and belt stopped moving. In the meantime the son's on the phone to the RAC (my provider through Barclays Bank Travel pack). An hour later and the recovery truck arrives, by which time I've put everything back together and removed the smouldering pulley and belt from the engine bay. Pulley was beyond help but the belt looked fine. The time is now around 7pm, I'm dropping in the 30 odd degree heat with heat exhaustion and the car is on the way to the recovery compound and locked up there until at the earliest Monday morning, when they will then await instruction from the RAC. Bear in mind I'm setting off back to Blighty at 6am Tuesday morning. Call back to the RAC about how we get home and they say they'll arrange a taxi. Half hour goes by and no news, so we call back. Due to it now being Saturday evening, they can't get a taxi for min 1.5 hours. My lad suggests we get an Uber and they reimburse us on return - RAC agree no problem. Uber booked and 5 mins later we're heading back to the Ranch. Worth noting at this point my Dad's aux belt snapped on the same stretch of Autoroute (within a mile) 3 years ago and the same recovery firm took his car to the pound. They fit a new belt but then told him he had an engine fault that would cost 3000 euro to fix. He ended up having to write the car off and leave it there, so I was already on pins about my car being there......as well as the fact my crossing back was on Tuesday. Straight to bed Saturday night when we got home as I was a tad suicidal. Sunday morning and the mind is ticking like a clock - if we can get a car, some tools, a new pulley, get to the pound and fit it, we're back in the game......but can't do that till Monday. Quick phone call to RAC and within 5 minutes they have a hire car waiting for us at HERTZ St Tropez that we can have up to 4 days, but we must be there by 12 noon (time is now 11:10). Uber booked and a race across town and we manage to get the hire car. Back up to the house and I bump in to the girl next door. Husband's away but she says - Carl has loads of tools, have a browse in his shed and see what you need. 24mm deep dish ring spanner and a 24mm socket (as well as one either side just incase) and things are looking positive. Monday morning comes round and we're heading to Porsche Frejus at 8:30, part number at hand, calling them en-route to see if they have one. After many calls due to the s**t French phone network with UK phones and the language barrier, parts guy says he has one waiting for us. Before we arrive, lads on the phone to RAC about collecting the car from the pound. Girl on the phone tells us the car's not ready and the fault hasn't been diagnosed so we can't collect it. We explain I'm a mechanic (yes I know) and I have the part off Porsche ready to fit. She's now on a parallel call to the compound about us getting the car. She then tells us we can't do that as their mechanic has called in sick that morning so the issue hasn't been diagnosed and the part can't be fit. We've already explained we'll do that, but it hasn't sunk in. After much discussion we are allowed to get the car from them, but we're not allowed to do anything on their property and have to tow it away ourselves. We agree to this and continue to Porsche. Porsche couldn't have done better - parts manager was waiting for us with the part ready on his desk and invoice made out. Quick payment, handshakes and thank yous and we're on our way. Quick glimpse of mint 964 on our way out: Part in hand and en-route to Cannes where the compound is: By now I'm ready for throwing up in the car with anxiety about getting the car, fixing the problem and the car even being 'untampered' with. We arrive at the depot and enter the office.......as we walk past 2 mechanics in the workshop.....who allegedly called in sick. The girls in the depot sort us out pretty quick, hand over the keys and I drive the car out and down the street to a safe place I can carry out the repair. Only the aux stuff and water pump not running, so with the engine being cold and battery fully charged, I'm not too fussed about doing any engine damage. 15 minutes later and I'm putting the belt back on. We struggle at this point and under closer inspection I see the belt (fit only a couple of months ago) has a very slight kink in it that I'm guessing happened when the pulley came off. After many attempts and now caked in crud and sweat all over our faces we decide we need a new belt. Chief navigator son directs us towards Porsche Antibes now as that's closer than Frejus. We arrive at 12:05 and ask for the parts department. "It's that way sir, but they have just gone for lunch....back in 2 hours" :what: I'm now thinking, we're gonna be pushing this to get the car done, return the hire car, clean up at the house, finish packing, have an evening out, up at 5am and drive back to Blighty at 6am. A browse round Antibes looking like a couple of Minstrels, sandwich and a drink and we're heading back up to Porsche. Spotted this beauty outside: I have the part number at hand from my purchase email from the belt the other month. Parts manager there again sorts us out no problem. I ensure it's for a car with aircon (longer than without) and that the part number is 2 digits higher - he informs us - Nouveau. No hand shakes this time as we're caked in sweaty *****, just a big thanks. We're back in the game - part in hand: We return to the car and within 5 minutes, the belt's on and a quick check with the engine running before I pop the airbox back on: Box back on and we're ready to roll: Quick snap after for my reference so I know approx when the new pulley and belt was fit: Back at mon maison for 16:30. I'm asking my son what time the HERTZ closes. 7pm, so the pressure is off there. We had to get that back if we were to drive home the next morning. At this point, I'm elated but shattered, so I call the girlfriend to let her talk me into changing my eurotunnel booking and having another day down there to get straight. Obviously she does, so I fire the laptop up, log in, edit return date and shift on to Wednesday. You can change a booking 24 hours either way and only have to pay any difference. Same train 24 hours on was £33 more so it was a no-brainer. Returned the tools to the neighbour, took the hire care back, went back home and got smashed on Rose. I felt I had to stop on a day as I just felt so crap on my son having to endure all this on his first (driving) road trip with his Dad. We've both come out the otherside stronger people now and he looks back and says it was worth it........plus he's just put a deposit down on a 987 yesterday as he enjoyed the trip that much :grin: Stopping on the extra day also enabled us to have an extra day in paradise with his new Italian/Slovenian best friend, so all's well....ends well! :drink: :cloud9: Worth noting, if I hadn't seized the moment, RAC's plan was to get the car trailered to a local garage, get the car fixed and pay the 1st £150 on labour, but nothing on parts. By which time this wouldn't have been done by Tuesday, so they would fly us both back to the UK and then when the car was fixed, would pay for my flight back down there to collect the car, pay the bill, then drive 1100 miles back to the UK.......no thank-you!!!! One last note: I replaced the bearing for a second time (first one was a FAG) with an SKF dual row bearing as spec'd on here: http://www.911uk.com/viewtopic.php?t=116879 I'll not be doing that again!!! Looking at the below diagram, you can see the tensioner pulley is the one with the most force on it as the belt does a full 180 degree wrap right round it, the other 2 only 90 degrees. I suppose the bearings maybe OK for the other 2 static pulleys, but I would not recommend doing this for the tensioner one:

Alex, just read this long post, and can honestly say that I was gripped the whole way through as there were several places where I couldn't second-guess the outcome. Well done in getting it all back together, a real achievement indeed for you and your Son. :thumb: P.S. My Sister leaves near Carcassonne in the South of France, so realise how stressful things can sometimes be with the heat and the way that the French system works, so making the end result even more impressive. :worship:

Great post. I can feel the emotions from anguish and despair through to relief and then euphoria. We used to go down to Frejus, Grimaud, St. Tropez all the time, and on a couple of occasions needed to get car parts from dealers in the vacinity to get us home. All nerve racking and far too stressful at the time, with me declaring to my wife "we might as well just leave the car here and lose the money!!" to then getting it sorted in a mad dash and putting it down to just another one of life's great adventures. :thumb:

Re: Tensioner Pulley left me stranded in the South of France So sorry to hear this Alex, I can't help but to think I've jinxed silver 996s' on holiday :sad: Know that feeling :grin: At least you were only without the car for a couple of days and it didn't cost you £3600, glad you got it sorted and hope it didn't ruin the holiday too much.

I dont want mechanical shennanigans on out trip to St Tropez in Oct for Porsche Paradis

You better start attacking the 101 issues that need resolving before we go then.

Well done! I was looking for a Monte Carlo or Bust scene (you know Peter and Dudley inventing 'Dawlish'. But glad you made it back to 'Bightly' :worship: https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/3612fdc1-38b4-4cca-9225-bd39ae8f889f

It's not a proper road trip without some mild peril :grin: . Well done sorting it and a great story to tell :thumbs:

Brilliant read - and pleased at the outcome. Now I'm late for dropping my daughter and work!

The most disturbing thing about this is that you drink Rose! 😜

Only from the local area. Rest of the World's Rose is shiite.

Great write up, really enjoyed that, thanks.

With you on that :thumb: Thanks for the entertaining read. :thumbs:

Glad you got it sorted out before your trip home, it can be a mare having to leave the car and return to get it another time. I had the same issue last year on my way down to Spain, the pulley next to the tensioner seized without any warning, southbound on the M1. We were stuck on the hard shoulder for 5 hours in the worst storm and on a Friday evening. Eventually got recovered but it was too late to get a hotel anywhere and ended up sat in a 24 hour Starbucks for around 7 hours. As the AA couldn't get us a hotel I had them pay for our food and drink, I didn't sleep at all that night but as further compensation I got them to pick me up in a taxi that Morning, once the OPC had opened, and also get me to Halfords for a socket and then to where the car was taken overnight. Luckily OPC had the pulley in stock. My belt had totally shredded as you can see when the bearing seized but I carry a spare, once I got to the recovery company to work on the car, it only too me 15 minutes to fit everything and we were back on the road. If I had left it with them to repair it wouldn't have even been looked at until Monday at the earliest wasting three days of the trip. Our original tunnel crossing was around 6am but we eventually made it on a train at midday. I had planned to drive half way through France that day but was so tired I ended up just booking at Le Torquet for the night and carried on the journey the next day. The trip was amazing in the end so most of the nightmare is forgotten about but it was a total nightmare at the time. I also now carry, along with a belt, a 24mm socket for the tensioner.

Yeah I'll be doing the same. Still have the seized pulley so may whack another bearing in it and carry that too as spare.