I was doing some maintenance to get ready to sell the wife’s old 100k '03 Civic EX. Car had a bit of intermittent squeaking and the belts were original so I replaced them.
After installation - it squeaks like a banshee when the AC is on.
The tension seems fine on both belts, and the noise only occurs when I turn the AC on (doesn’t happen at various RPMs). Didn’t know if any of you honda regulars knew if this was common and indicative of something in the AC crapping out.
You said you already checked tension on the belts but that’s usually the only issue I would run into, that or the pulleys are a little sloppy and are no longer aligned. Cleaning them would be easiest, you don’t have to remove the belts just loosen a tad and turn them.
Sounds to me like the compressor itself may be on it’s way out. You said it only squeks when the A/C is on, meaning when its off the A/C pulley is freely spinning noise free but when you turn it on and the clutch engages spinning the compressor itself it’s noisy as can be? Thats the way I’m interpreting your post. So that would tell me the compressor itself or the clutching on the pulley is F’d up and it’s making noise.
As for it being common…well, my 2k3 civic has made noise from the A/C compressor for the last 40k miles. It’s not a squeak, it’s not obnoxious, but it’s definately there and it hasn’t been an issue for me.
Tighten the Alt belt more. I had mine changed and we thought it was tight enough. TurboCiv gave tightened it some more and i have used the AC the last 2 weeks without any squeak. give the tentenor a few more rotations b4 trying anything else. FYI i have a 2005 civic same motor
