Unpopular opinion: I used to slap any old belt on a dryer and call it done

Anthony Lane · 2026-09-29T21:55:04.295077+00:00

Back in my early days running calls around Akron I kept a milk crate of random dryer belts in the van and just grabbed whatever looked close. If it spun the drum, I was out the door and on to the next ticket, easy money. Then about 4 years ago I put a stretchy universal belt on a Whirlpool and the guy called back 3 weeks later saying it walked off the pulley and chewed up the idler. That's when I pulled the old belt out of the trash and seen the ribs were cut at a totally different angle than what I put on, so I dug out my parts book and sure enough it called for a 4 rib belt and I'd been running 5 ribs on half the machines in town. Now I measure belt width with a cheap caliper before I even open the crate, takes 10 seconds and I haven't had a callback on one since. What gets me is how many guys in my area still do the guess and grab thing, so what did your wake up call look like?

🐿️Pinecone Attack

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Unpopular opinion: I used to slap any old belt on a dryer and call it done | Appliance Repairers - Pinecone Attack