2002 mazda protege - 2.0l - car sat for a week and when started alternator belt squeeled and ate some belt up. Now it seems ok. Bad alternator or bad water pump?

Replace belt tensioner, any other pullys, I worked on ? vehicle where the pully would spin but would stop every so often.

ok for the belt, it may be weather beaten or small cracks in it. and as for the alternator if its bad just get another one, and have a friend or a independent garage do the job. 900.00 dollars is way to high! thats a ripoff. call around and im sure you can have both of these things done fairly cheap! as for the alternator, if there is a rebuild place that rebuilds starters and alternators. this would be your best bet. i have had a alt. rebuilt and i only paid about 80.00. they are like new when they rebuild them. good-day !

start the car but do not drive it. look at the belt when it is running. if belt hops around then the tensioner is bad and not holding belt tight enough. or the belt itself may be bad. alo check for a bad idler pully for the belt.

it is either the alternator or the associated belt.

Bad Connection On the Alternator check plug & Pos Lead

one of the pulleys is not turning. with the belt off you should be able to spin all pulleys by hand and they should turn easy.

do you have a siezed tensioner pulley that could do it . remove the serpentine belt and check the idler puller, then the alt if it's siezed , the water pump pulley should turn freely also check what is siezed and making the belts squeel something's not turning.

That means the fanbelt on the alternator is not tight enough or needs to be changed, if the belt on powersteering goes via A/C than it might be too tight on the powersteering pulley.

check to see if your alternator belt is loose

Tighten the alternator belt