Review on Continental Elite 4040398 Poly V Serpentine by Kevin Carr

One of the most frustrating parts of working on a 01-05 Honda Civic is changing the drive belts - and this generation Civic has two, each with its own manual adjuster. Unlike every generation, after which there were significantly more maintenance-friendly V-ribbed belts with automatic tensioners. That is, if you have incorrectly tensioned the A/C belt, you must first remove the P/S pump with belt and adjuster, adjust the A/C belt, then install the P/S pump and belt, and set to. Both are different tensions and with new belts and according to Honda you should first run the engine for 5 minutes on one tension spec (new) and then both again on the second (used) spec. Why did I explain all of what? Because the NAPA belt, which I spent quite a bit of money on despite following Honda procedure verbatim, made an eerie howl on the freeway just ten minutes after installation. When driving through and re-tensioning, it still squeaked at times (e.g. when turning the wheel at parking speed). Note that I heard rave reviews of Goodyear's Gator straps and decided to ship them to my door, stat (my neighbors started avoiding eye contact after a couple of days of boiling kettle squeals while heating up). Received these (exact same brand belts from new owner) and reinstalled to Honda specs. and lo and behold, no noise. No look. Great, I can get on with my life. About a week later, the straps got talkative again. I said damn no. So if the A/C clutch was recently replaced it can't be that pulley, only the P/S pulley remains. Conti belts ordered, changed and reinstalled. No noise and no noise since (it's been exactly two months and it hasn't even squeaked). It turned out that the small 3-inch P/S pulley on my 180,000-mile 2004 had worn out—and because it was small and turned the fastest, it suffered the most from wear. I bought the car with 145,000 miles on it so it had to be modified without my knowledge (my first Civic of this generation). In comparison, I couldn't tell the difference either visually or haptically - but the wear and tear seemed to be enough to cause a constant creaking (replacing the AC clutch creaking eliminated for the time being, but when it came back I was at a loss until I switched to Conti, then the P/S pulley has probably given up). That means despite the badly worn P/S pulley, the Conti belts kept my Civic from waking up the neighbors for a week, where the NAPA belts squeaked instantly. I'm convinced that this design is the only explanation, because otherwise nothing has changed between the two installations: the continuous ribbed strap cannot compete with this eyelet-like bias-cut strap. - Its compound and extra grooves should allow it to fit and get traction where a cheap belt slips and squeaks. i am a convert Few things get 5 stars from me as reliably as this belt. Well done Conti.