We have a 2004 Hyundai Sonata. It has 82,000 miles on it and we have had it for four years. We bought it used. During the last year the belt that drives the power steering shredded and broke. We had it replaced. It shredded again three month latter and we replaced it again. It shredded again after three months and they replaced the harmonic balancer. It shredded again after a few months and we brought it to another repair shop. They replaced the tension pulley and after one month it shredded again. They have used a strobe to watch the motion of the belt and can see nothing wrong with it. Today we have had the belt replace six times by two different repair shops and nobody understands why it breaks. There is one more symptom to mention. With the first repair shop the belt would gradually migrate off the pulley before it broke. You could see it gradually move off the pulley over a period of weeks. With the second repair shop the belt did not migrate off the pulley but simply break one day with out warning. Any ideas are gratefully received. Can we ever get this problem fixed and why can’t two highly regarded garages find the problem. Thanks for reading this.
Both pulleys and the tensioner have to be in near perfect alignment for the belt to run straight without going off the pully. You also have to check the power steering pump itself to see if it is not seizing up.
Many years ago I had a Dodge Colt which did the same thing, and it turned out the pump bracket was cracked and did not allow the pully to stay in line with the belt.
It looks like your “mechanics” are just replacing parts and not trying to get at the root of the problem.