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Is my car safe to drive with the fan belt squealing?

It only does it whilst going round corners, will it brake down? The car is a H reg ford escort.

Public Comments

1. always replace squeaky belts but im thinking since it only does it when turning you might see the issue again not long after a belt replacement. trust me you dont want to be on some crappy us highway in the dark with a busted belt
2. safe? depends on your definition of safe. You are not in any jeopardy of bodily injury if thats what you mean. Depending upon how lose the belt is, yes, it very well could cause your car to break down. The squealing you hear is the belt being rubbed by the pulleys that drive it. This rubbing will eventually cause the belt to become more and more lose, and jump off the pulleys. Or cause the belt to break by wearing it out prematurely. The slippage is glazing the belt and making it very slick, inhibiting it ability to grip and thus causing more slippage and squealing. Sounds like the tensioner for the belt has, or is going bad. This is if you have a serpentine belt. If you have the older type Escort with the multipal v- belts then each belt should be checked for proper tension and the squealing one component it drives can be adjusted to correct the tension and aleviate the squeal. Hope this helps
3. The belt probably runs much more than just the fan. I don't know about escorts, but I had the serpentine belt break on one of my cars as I was going around a corner. The car died and never ran again.