If you have a car, do you check the fan belt regularly?

[HundredAcreOwl]

Half fun, half serious.

Our older child, 30s, their car wouldn't start. They had to work when the help could come out (one of AA, RAC, Green Flag), so their housemate gave the person the car keys. All was sorted, it was the fan belt, but the person said they should have checked it regularly, implying it was their fault. Their car is serviced every year with the MOT.

AIBU You check your fan belt, or someone does, apart from regular services
AINBU You ignore the fan belt until it goes

Rather wish there was a third option - showing my age - who keeps a pair of tights in the car in case the fan belt goes?!

Edited to correct perspective, and add the tights...

Haven't seen a car since around 80/90s with a fan belt, almost all have an electric fan instead.

If the timing belt/chain has broken then 99% of the time you are looking at a destroyed engine (and possible write-off).

If the alternator belt has gone then you should have seen a warning light come on at some point saying the battery was not charging.

While I've heard of a fan belt, I wouldn't know where in the car it was, what it looked like, what the purpose is, what are the symptoms of it breaking down, or how to even begin to fix it.
That's what I pay a garage to do. Plus I'm a member of the AA for these sorts of events.
My car gets an in-depth service every year, at the same time as its MOT.

Just for clarification, my car has a chain rather than a drive belt but neither are the same thing as a fan belt. I never check my fan belt, that's checked at servicing and I've never had an issue with it.

Mine do, it’s a very quick check and an easy potential upsell. You need to find better mechanics.

Good grief, I don’t even know how to open the bonnet. It’s a hybrid, would they have a fan belt?

Thanks so much everyone. The main point was that someone from a recognised organisation blamed the car owner, my adult kid, and my adult kid really thought they were at fault. It bothered them a lot as the car means so much in terms of independance.Thanks, all, it's clear they weren't at fault.

I do make sure I can open the bonnet on a 'new' car, know where the dipstick, screenwash etc. are, but I do also rely on the regular servicing the car has.

There has been a real dumbing down in recent years . 20/30 years ago people were much more car savvy and would know how to check basic items themselves / change a wheel etc.These days people are more clueless.

Drivers really do need to take some responsibility. Knowing how to check your tyres to see if they are within the legal limit for example. It is you as a driver who will get fined and points on your licence for having bald tyres. The argument that you had it serviced 9 months ago and they were ok then wouldn’t hold any water.

@HundredAcreOwl Are you posting from the 1980s? Cars have not had fan belts for more than 35 years! 😆

Not belt driven fans perhaps, but the aux or serpentine belt is still colloquially known as a fan belt and I think we know what someone is talking about when they refer to it as such.

There has been a real dumbing down in recent years . 20/30 years ago people were much more car savvy and would know how to check basic items themselves / change a wheel etc.These days people are more clueless.

That's not entirely drivers' fault. When I got my first cars, they all came with a spare wheelchair. Now I get a bottle of gloop instead - obviously this doesn't stop me checking tyre pressure and thread depth, but it does mean i couldn't do much other than call the AA when I got a large hole in my tyre.

I did question a colleague yesterday who said he'd been helping another colleague check the oil in her car, and I even question if he meant just a normal dipstick check, because who needs help with that? (It's possible she is entirely capable of it - he's good looking and single.)

When I had battery problems, I can change that alone. I can't do the magic that was required which the AA did by plugging in a device and doing stuff to the electronic management system. And lots of car problems need that sort of thing these days.

Whilst they’re still colloquially known as fan belts they no longer drive the fan. All ICE engines will however have this belt, also known as serpentine/auxiliary belt because without it your air con wouldn’t work, your power steering wouldn’t work, your alternator wouldn’t charge and on some engines your water pump wouldn’t work!

Important to get it changed if it starts squealing or chirruping because on cars with a rubber timing belt there’s a risk the fan belt snapping can also take out the timing belt and be catastrophic to your engine.

Routine replacement is often around 50-70k miles.