Serpentine Belt snapped while driving/Steering Lock failure info

[Jbwrecked]

So I'm cruising around the city on Thursday night. Just highway cruising at around 60mph with music playing and windows down. I take an exit to merge onto another highway and do a good 15-90mph pull. As I slow down I hear some clicking or slapping of some sort. I ignore it as its very faint and just clicks for like 8 times and then goes away. On my final stretch going home I notice that my power steering is gone and my AC is blowing hot. I kind of freaked out and checked out my gauges and noticed my Voltage was at about 12V. Then I look at the cluster and see my "BRAKE" light and my "Battery" warning lights are on. I look down and my brake is engaged or anything. I get home, open the hood, and belt is just ripped on a couple of the ribs but off all the pulleys which explains the power steering and AC failure.

Kind of just venting a bit but also wondering.... Why would this happen? I was driving for about an hour when all this randomly occured

VIDEO:
Irregular Nissan 370z behavior - YouTube
(Sorry don't know how to embed)



Next day (Friday) I take it to the dealer to get it checked out and I'm told they have to contact my warranty company (I DO have 100k warranty). Unfortunately they're closed so they have to wait till Monday to see if I'm being covered. At this time the Service Agent asks me if their is anything else going on with the car and I tell him my 5th and 6th gears have been grinding as well as my clutch acting funny and randomly my SRM has about a second delay before actually rev-matching.

I'm told that they have to drop the transmission to check that the clutch isn't worn because (for some reason) if it is abnormally worn, then I've basically been "abusing" the car which then results in my warranty not covering anything but at the same time I have to pay for the labor of dropping the transmission. I thought that was COMPLETE BS.

Anyway, turns out my clutch is fine and everything will be covered. Getting a brand new transmission and they will be fixing my pulley and what not with a $100 deductible. What happened with the serpentine belt is, my tensioner pulley spring on the inside had collapsed and just threw everything off. One of the ribs got wrapped around my Power Steering line and damaged it so that is also covered.

Side Note:
NOW FOR ALL YOU GUYS WORRIED ABOUT THE STEERING LOCK FAILURE. The service agent told me that there was a recall for that and they will be replacing it and taking care of it on them of course. They ALSO told me that people have also been getting reimbursed if they had to pay for it to get fixed on them. Haven't looked through the forums to see if this info is out already but just wanted to share with you guys in case there's anyone wondering about it.

In a way I'm upset this happened to my Z and am stuck in a Altima for a while but at the same time I'm super happy that Nissan/Warranty is taking care of me and hopefully will be getting rid of a lot of headaches.

Super sorry for the novel, in a lame statistics class and felt this was more important