Good morning, first please let me say thank you for any help that any one can provide, it is greatly appreciated. I think it's really great that people exist like you that help those that do not have this knowledge & skill. I have a wife and two kids, and no room for error (though my car has been a calamity this past year, with error after error)

I'll try to be as brief as possible explaining the situation

I have a 1997 Chevy Blazer. In the past 10 months, I've put around 7,000 in repairs & maint. It's getting high in mileage, and ideally I should have tried to purchase a new car a year / year 1/2 ago, however circumstance did not allow me. My in laws have paid on credit, essentially fronting me the money so I could get to work and continue day to day (3 - 4 different repair times during the past year every few months for various issues)

About a month ago, we had a tune up done & a new serpentine belt installed along with a new radiator.

Yesterday, while starting my car after driving for about twenty minutes (ran in a store for five mins) my car made a funny sound. While pulling off and starting to drive my battery light came on and when I attempted my first turn my power steering had cut off and I almost crashed into some parked cars. After getting use to the loss of power steering about 5 mins later, my car started to overheat. I was able to make it back to work. When I checked on the engine, I noticed the serpentine belt was pretty much completely off and wrapped around the fan.

We called the auto repair shop & they towed the vehicle. This morning they called and said that the Belt Tensioner went bad and this caused the serp belt to come off. He said that the belt tensioner is "completely unrelated to the tune up & new serpentine belt install & that on cars things just go like a hot water heater".

Does this sound right? Or should they have checked the tensioner when they did the tune up & replaced the serpentine belt? And is the tensioner related to the tune up serpentine install at all. I have the feeling that this should have been noticed when they did the work, however I'm not to knowledgeable when it comes to cars. Again, thank you for taking the time to read this, and any help is very much appreciated.

Thank you & have a good day

 

The tensioner is right there in front of you and it should be inspected whenever the belt is removed. To not inspect it would be due to laziness, in my opinion.

Hopefully the drive didn't completely waste the motor... Overheating is BAD and without the serpentine belt, the water pump isn't turning.

 

Thank you, I feel better that you agree that this was something that the mechanic should have noticed. Hopefully they will repair without cost.

I'm a bit worried though about driving while overheating. I did go really slow, and it was interstate driving, so not much stop & go. Hopefully I didn't do to much damage (hit's self in head).

Thank you

 

I should have added that it is entirely possible that it was inspected and found to be good or not out of the ordinary, only failing a short while later.