Thread: drive belt(s) issue/Tolerance

dont know what kind of belts ya'll run but thought i'd just throw this out as G-Wiz info.

we had problems with our blue bird bus fleet snapping the serpentine belts, we couldnt figure out why, replaced and vehicle went on its way. Apparently this was happening Air Force wide in some bases, come to find out the bases that were using GATES brand belts were the ones snapping for no reason. The Fix: Dayco belts are now being used instead, reason? Dayco has less of a tolerance for the belt to stretch, thats why the gates belts were snapping, they stretched too far and quite possibly due to heat from the engine as well. now im not sure the exact specs i never got any numbers relayed to myself.

thought i would just give ya'll a heads up or maybe a second thought if you currently use Gates brand belts in any of your vehicles

gates in my experience have always been the superior belt. Very odd your snapping those and not the dayco.

I do and will continue to use Gates over every other brand. Just because one particular engine has an issue with the Gates belts doesn't mean that they all will. A lot of OEM belts are made by Gates and then stamped with the auto manufactures logo on it as well.

They Dayco belts Toyota uses on the new 5.7 Tundra's crack in 10-15k on average, but they work just fine on your blue birds.

dont know either why they were snapping, i always thought they were some of the best belts around. maybe it was just that particular belt? maybe the 90-100 degree louisiana 8-9months and 80%+ humidity all the time and the fact that most of our vehicles idle 90% of the time. but was just trying to give some info in case if any one else has run into this problem.
just like our biodiesel is junk and now we have vehicles with the exhaust fluid injection (urea) i think thats how its spelled. i know these vehicles arent junk, just the crap that happens or i have seen personally. were just waiting til these vehicles will be in the shop constantly.... sorry got a bit off topic