I have been having a problem with my 2001 Corolla CE ever since I bought it used 3 years ago. After driving it only 200 miles (it had 40,000) out of nowhere while driving a loud screeching came from below the hood and it was near impossible to steer. I checked under the hood and the fan belt was incredibly loose. This was because the bolt that goes into the tensioner then into the engine block was broke.

It was quite fun to find out the bolt actually fused into the engine. The dealership I bought the car from fixed it for free.

Two months later, same thing. Luckily it happened so soon again that the bolt didn't fuse to the car.

Two months after that, again same thing. Figuring obviously it can't be the bolt anymore, I went to Toyota and bought a new tensioner ($175!!). I put it in, tightened the bolt, and checked its tightness every once in a while. It seemed I found the problem because after 6 months of it being in the bolt was still in tight.

Well today my fan belt started squeaking when I turned the AC, so I checked it out. The bolt is loose again and is impossible to completely tighten now. How is this? What's wrong? I'm going mad. The fan belt is very loose and the tensioner doesn't look like it's hugging the engine as well as I would think it should.

If someone could give me some pointers I'd really appreciate it. I was CERTAIN the tensioner was to blame but obviously it's not since it's happening again. The only difference is after replacing the tensioner this problem took a lot longer to happen again.

Thanks a lot in advance everyone.

OK since apparantly no one here can help me, is there anywhere online I can buy a replacement tensioner bolt for this lemon I call a car that is more heavy duty than the Toyota one?

That's really wild, and I'm sure completely annoying. Have you contacted Toyota? Not just your dealership, but the company. They would probably be able to help you and would probably like to know for their own trouble shooting purposes. You could take it to different mechanic, maybe an independent one. They often have spare parts from all makes of cars and they may have something that would work better for you.

Do you live somewhere with extreme weather? Could that have something to do with it? Leave your car outside at night? Have any enemies who might want to drive you crazy?