In short, you should check your belts every 3,000 or so miles, or as part of your annual maintenance efforts. Mind you, that’s a simple check using one of the plastic tools like Sherwood’s.

The first shop’s estimate? Long says, “By the time they paid tax and everything, it was going to be over $2,000. $2,200 or something.” That’s after the CR-V driver paid a $134 diagnostic fee.