Two days ago my Uplander began to make a horrible noise from around the belt. My husband used some "belt dressing" on it but nothing helped. What else could be the issue? I can't afford to take it to the dealership for some diagnostics right now. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

 

Probably your alternator is seizing up. Get it fixed before something binds right up and cuts the belt, you will be stuck then.

 

maybe the belt tensioner or pulleys???? YA - NO???

 

It has to be your belt-tensioner, but try buying a new belt first. The tensioner is spring loaded and the spring will lose its tension after being tampered with. Get the new belt at the dealer because our van is a little tricky with its belt. I had the same problem and put a new tensioner on it but did not help, then I bought a belt from autozone and still did the same thing so I went to the dealer and bought a new belt from them and it got fixed easily. Pretty weird if you ask me but it worked.

 

After I posted this I took the Uplander to a "chain" to ask them to look at the belt and diagnose the noise I was hearing. I was told that my power steering pump was leaking but it wasn't as critical as the brakes that needed replaced (probably would cost more to fix the brakes!). My husband fixed the brakes. When I took it somewhere else to get the oil changed I asked them to check the power steering fluid and I was told it may be leaking...they said the level was fine and didn't see any leaks! Hmm...The good news is now that it has warmed up the squeal seems to have disappeared. Could it still be a tensioner or pulley if the warmer weather causes the noise to disappear? My guess is it still needs to be fixed....

Thanks!

 

The front of this engine is pretty busy, lots going on there. I don't know why GM felt they needed FOUR idlers including the tensioner on this engine. Pretty poor design IMO.
Anyways, if the squeal returns take a flashlight and check to make sure all those pulleys and idlers are spinning. One may have locked up. If that checks out and you have the ability to remove the belt, it's easy to check by spinning them by hand. If one has a bad bearing you will notice a difference from the others such as noise or dragging.
I just finished replacing the bearing on one of the idlers on my engine. It made this awful scraping noise.