My 2012 GS is 11 months old with 2300 miles and I just had to replace the harmonic balancer. The odd thing is, the day the car was delivered it had the dreaded chirp; but the dealer claimed there was no HB wobble so I let it go. Well the chirp persisted and now there's a wobble and the HB is being replaced. I'm not happy joining the club!

 

Would you mind explaining or describing the "chirp"? I don't think my '13 GS with close to 6k miles has it, but then again, I don't exactly know what to listen for either. Like you, I would not be happy having to replace anything so quickly on a new car.

 

How do you detect this visually? Can you simply look down from above and observe the HB wobble or is it too slight a movement to detect? I'm concerned it will fail with severe consequences and I wont have any warning. I have a 2008 Coupe with 26,000 miles and no chirp that I can detect.

 

That sucks!

The chirp sounds like a belt going bad.
The HB wobbling is a what to look for.

 

Just sounds to me like a belt is squeaking. It's loud enough to hear when sitting in the driver's seat with the window down at idle. You will not mistake it for anything else!

 

Look at the crank pulley and if you see the HB wobbling, that's it. There is a video of a bad HB on the Forum and if you search for it, I am sure you will find it.