Drive belt broken

[robdex1]

I have a Honda 57 reg was driving before and the battery light and then the overheating light came on. Luckily I was about 0.7 miles from home. Got home and did some googling and said to check the belt. Located it and its snapped. Its the drive belt/alternator/serpentine belt or whatever its called. I don't have the knowledge at all to do it myself. I have a garage that is literally 30 seconds away. Would I be OK to drive it there in the morning as I know you shouldn't drive it really but surely it will be fine such short distance. Secondly I have breakdown cover, is it something they might be able to repair if they came out or would they just offer to tow me

[P700DEE]

If your aux belt has snapped you will have no water pump, no oil pump and no power steering. That said if the garage is 90 seconds away then I would be driving it.

[Rough101]

Why don’t you walk there and ask their advice?

My worry is that it may get snarled up in the timing belt and cause serous damage.

If you have the entire belt out safe and there it’s litelelly two minutes it should be OK, but no more than that as you have no water pump this no cooling.

[sunbeam alpine]

Drive it.

[HustleRussell]

P700DEE said:

If your aux belt has snapped you will have no water pump, no oil pump and no power steering. That said if the garage is 90 seconds away then I would be driving it.

You sure about that?

And hypothetically you’d recommend driving 90 seconds with no oil pump?

[robdex1]

P700DEE said:

If your aux belt has snapped you will have no water pump, no oil pump and no power steering. That said if the garage is 90 seconds away then I would be driving it.

The steering felt fine though?

[President Merkin]

No way is the oil pump driven off a serpentine belt. Drive it to the garage, the belt will run power steering, air con, the alterntor, maybe the water pump but probably not. It will be fine to drive half a mile or so.

[HustleRussell]

This is the good post

Rough101 said:

Why don’t you walk there and ask their advice?

My worry is that it may get snarled up in the timing belt and cause serous damage.

If you have the entire belt out safe and there it’s litelelly two minutes it should be OK, but no more than that as you have no water pump this no cooling.

[robdex1]

Power steering seemed fine before. Yeah I could walk there in the morning and ask. It's bank holiday though so hope they are open. Any idea what it'll cost roughly? Is it worth calling my breakdown maybe they could replace it?

[HustleRussell]

I can’t read your breakdown cover policy document from here but they may not attend at all since you’re at home and wouldn’t replace the belt even if they did.

[HustleRussell]

Cost depends on whether it’s just a belt or whether it’s a water pump or tensioner failure which has caused the belt to fail.

[littleredrooster]

P700DEE said:

If your aux belt has snapped you will have no water pump, no oil pump and no power steering. That said if the garage is 90 seconds away then I would be driving it.

1. Oil pump is never driven from the serpentine belt.
2. Power steering is electric.
3. OP said the garage was 30 seconds away.

One out of four ain't bad, I suppose...

[Mercdriver]

Remove radiator filler cap and top up water if low, leave cap off and drive to garage, without pressure cap engine will take longer to heat up, if you are that close unlikely to overheat engine.

[Mave]

Ok now I'm curious, why does the engine takes longer to heat up if you take off the cap? It's burning the same amount of fuel surely?

[littleredrooster]

Mave said:

Ok now I'm curious, why does the engine takes longer to heat up if you take off the cap? It's burning the same amount of fuel surely?

It doesn't. But without the cap, it will boil and chuck the water out sooner, so wrong advice unfortunately. It's good that the garage is only 30 seconds drive away, however; it should survive that long.

The only time that leaving the cap off would work is if there is a coolant leak. Leaving the system at atmospheric pressure and driving slowly may mean that the coolant will not disappear rapidly under pressure.

[E-bmw]

robdex1 said:

I have a Honda 57 reg was driving before and the battery light and then the overheating light came on. Luckily I was about 0.7 miles from home. Got home and did some googling and said to check the belt. Located it and its snapped. Its the drive belt/alternator/serpentine belt or whatever its called. I don't have the knowledge at all to do it myself. I have a garage that is literally 30 seconds away. Would I be OK to drive it there in the morning as I know you shouldn't drive it really but surely it will be fine such short distance. Secondly I have breakdown cover, is it something they might be able to repair if they came out or would they just offer to tow me

For some reason the advice you are getting is extremely contradictory & worryingly inaccurate, so here is my advice to you.

If you feel the need to, ring your breakdown cover provider if you have "at home" over, and they may well fix it for the price of parts depending on the level of cover you have.

If that fails you will be fine to drive the car to your local (30 seconds away) garage as you clearly have electric power steering that is unaffected by the issue & the engine won't even get warm in that time.

If (as you imply) you have lost your serpentine belt (depending on engine configuration) you may lose air con, alternator, and possibly water pump, none of these will be a worry for a minute drive, just don't leave the engine running for any longer than necessary.

[vikingaero]

I've driven the Daihatsu Shed 1.5 miles to my mechanic with no drive belt. Obviously I made sure all fluids were full, went at silly AM so I wouldn't have to stop, the air was cool and the heater turned on max. YMMV. I've also driven the same Shed home from work with no drivebelt - 8 miles but it was -3C.

[President Merkin]

That^^ There's a fair bit of hand wringing nonsense on this thread. A couple of miles from cold isn't going to damage anything if the drive belt is gone.

[bearman68]

But I drove my MR2 2 miles with a shredded drive belt, and knackered the engine.

Though I do tend to agree, half a mile or so from cold will be OK, and I would leave the rad cap on.
And as others have said, don't run the engine any more than you absolutely need to.