Hi. I thought I had successfully, if painfully, completed swapping out the two serpentine belts on my 2000 ES300.

But now, it won't start!

It just plain won't even try to start.

I did mess up and just the tiniest bit loosened the bolt on one of the power steering pulleys, which was promptly tightened upon discovering the mistake. Not sure that could be it.

Any ideas?

 

No click of the starter relay at all? Do the lights light up? Hard to see changing a serpentine belt causing this!

 

NOTHING! Dead as a doorknob.

What could cause this? Timing belt gone?

 

Does the car have power (dashboard light up when key turned)? Even if the timing belt broke, and the piston locked against a valve, the starter would still try to turn the engine, and actually may be able to bend the valve in the process and actually turn.

 

Thanks for trying to help, mmatheny. I figured it out. The battery had completely drained. I knew my alternator belt had completely busted but the battery was working OK when I started to fix the thing. But I guess there wasn't much left. So I charged it and all is well -- for now. I will have to see how the timing belt change goes when the mechanic does that next week.

Thanks for your help and for the help of everybody on this board.

 

Glad you got it sorted out Amanda - good to see a female on the forums also!

 

Glad you got it sorted out.

Did the old belts snap? or squealing? Just wondering why you changed the belts if you have a timing belt job coming up?

I have done a complete timing belt job on this engine 1MZ-FE on my mom's 99 Camry V6 which is the same as the ES.

The mechanic will need to pull off the accessories belts in order to get to the Crank pulley and timing covers, so the mechanic could have changed the belts for you when he re-assembled it.

BTW, my kit was the most complete I could find here's what it included:
1x Timing Belt (Mitsuboshi)
1x Waterpump (AISIN)
1x Waterpump Gasket
2x Idler Pulleys (Koyo)
1x Auto Tensioner (NTN)
2x Cam Seals (Stone)
1x Crank Seal (Stone or KP)
1x Powersteering Belt (Bando)
1x Alternator Belt (Bando)
1x Thermostat (Kuzeh)
1x Thermostat Gasket (Stone or KP)

The Thermostat is not necessary but while I had all the coolant out I went ahead and changed it for piece of mind

I also bought 2 Bottles of AISN factory Coolant.

All those parts are from the OEM manufacturers that produce the parts for Toyota.
I got everything for $197 shipped, awesome deal.

I recommend that you change the CAM and Crank seals if possible, they were leaking quite badly on the our 99 Camry with only 80k miles.

Out of curiosity how much is the mechanic charging you for parts+labor? I won't be surprised to hear a high number since the job is quite laborious from my experience.

I do plan to do the timing belt job on my 2000 ES platinum but I'm torn cause the car only has almost 47k miles on it. so it's not the mileage but the age, so I might do it just for piece of mind.