Hello fellow GenVibers!
I thought I'd post my experience in here as I saw no history of the same experience, so if someone deals with this in the future that they will know this is an option!
I drive a 2005 Vibe, about 90,000km on it. I bought it in the fall of 2017, with the only issue being that it had no AC.
I was okay with this, as it is my first vehicle, and I can tolerate the heat with the windows rolled down. So my compressor, despite not working, was still being used as essentially just a stationary extra pulley.
A couple mornings ago I noticed a chirping sound, and assumed it was coming from the serpentine belt. I diagnosed the problem to likely be the AC compressor pulley bearing, but assumed I could still drive it to work that day and fix it the next. Unfortunately my car began to smoke out of the hood on the way to work, and I totally ruined the clutch on the compressor.
Brought it to the shop and they wanted to replace the compressor completely and get me started on the full A/C repair, which I wasn't interested in spending 1500+ for...so I brought up the idea of buying a shorter belt and entirely bypassing the compressor.
They originally said it was not possible, I found that there was no reason why it wouldn't be (as there were early versions of the corolla that never had A/C). So I told them I would do the repair myself if they weren't willing to.
Long story short, the belt (part #5060605) works awesome! If anything goes wrong with your compressor and you aren't ready to make the A/C repair this is a great shortcut to use to simply bypass the compressor! You can look this up online and there are diagrams for this exact set up.
Hope that may help someone else!