I love my scion. It has been the best car I have ever had the pleasure of owning and I’ve had some clunkers! I had the belts replaced 2 years ago and they now squeal so loudly (only when it’s cold out) that dogs start howling! Do they need to be replaced again or is something else wrong? I know very little about cars. I can jump a battery, change the tires, look under the hood, shake my head with my hand on my hip all while scratching my head. And that’s the extent of it. Any other preventive maintenance suggestions- other than oil changes- that should be done so that I can drive this car to 300K miles?
If the belts are still in good condition–as they should be after only 2 years–then the next item to look at is belt tensioners. If yours have never been replaced, after 190k+ miles, it is probably time to replace those tensioners.
Follow the maintenance schedule in your manual
Drain and replace coolant at recommended interval
If auto trans, drain and replace transmission fluid at recommended interval
Replace brake fluid at recommended interval
Your analogy is backwards. It’s better to say you have owned several wonderful cars and your current car is the cream of the crop. If every car prior to this was awful, of course it would look good. Why don’t you have a garage look at belt issue.
It would be unusual to have to replace belts after two years, but not unheard of. Mechanics have a device to isolate where a sound is coming from, that might make it easy for your shop to diagnose. Don’t ignore this squealing noise, and not just for the sake of the dogs howling. It could be an indication something is out of kilter and needs to be addressed before serious damage occurs.
There are lots of reasons a belt can start to squeal. So someone has to inspect the whole system - belts, pulleys, pulley bearings, and everything hooked up to those pulleys (e.g. power steering reservoir, AC compressor…)
Thank you all for your advice. It is much appreciated.