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Yesterday morning I noticed a high pitched whine coming from the engine bay. It gets louder/higher pitched as the RPMs increase and is present in park, drive and neutral. I tried to pinpoint it from under the hood last night but it was too noisy under there to even hear it while revving the engine. It's still there this morning as well. Could this be a vacuum leak somewhere? It doesn't seem like it's running any worse than it was before I noticed it.

Check the pulleys and the alternator first. If you don't have a stethoscope, try a short piece of hose to try to pinpoint the noise. You could also remove the belts one at a time, and see if the noise stops. If so, then see if anything binds when spun, although they can be noisy and still not show up as a problem this way. When the belt is off, spin the water pump and the power steering pump to see if they are binding and causing belt squeal.

Another thing is to spray some WD-40 on the bearings to see which one quiets down.

I get the same noise like a bearing going bad (a whine) but mine only occurs when driving the car at around 50 MPH and it only occurs when you are pressing on the gas pedal. Once the noise starts, if you lift up on the gas, the noise goes away. There is no noise if you rev the engine when it is in park. It only seems to happen when the engine is under load. I have replaced both tensioner pulleys with no luck. I know it's not a wheel bearing because I have checked both wheels for play. This has been going on for about a year and I keep waiting for something to fail so I can figure out what is causing it. I took the belts off and hand spun both the AC and Alternator and both seem OK. Has anybody else had this type of problem? I haven't seen anything like this on the board yet. Thanks.

Last year I had a low whine noise that increased in pitch with rpms that I was sure was coming from the alternator and I suspected its bearings were soon going to go. However the noise went away after a couple of weeks and has not returned in over a year. I had read somewhere that a dusty alternator might cause such a noise.

Apparently the noise is coming from my radio. I had turned it all the way down before and the noise didnt go away, but tonight when I turned it off, the noise disappeared...

beachbum wrote:I get the same noise like a bearing going bad (a whine) but mine only occurs when driving the car at around 50 MPH and it only occurs when you are pressing on the gas pedal. Once the noise starts, if you lift up on the gas, the noise goes away. There is no noise if you rev the engine when it is in park. It only seems to happen when the engine is under load. I have replaced both tensioner pulleys with no luck. I know it's not a wheel bearing because I have checked both wheels for play. This has been going on for about a year and I keep waiting for something to fail so I can figure out what is causing it. I took the belts off and hand spun both the AC and Alternator and both seem OK. Has anybody else had this type of problem? I haven't seen anything like this on the board yet. Thanks.

My mother's 03 has the same exact issue. I can't duplicate it when it's in park and I rev it up. Has to be under load, moderate to hard acceleration. I'ts been doing it since they bought it in 04 with 30K miles. Sounds intake related or vacuum related to me.

Last year my 2003 was squealing while on the road and was chirping while in the driveway idling. It was the alternator bearing. I sprayed it using the small plastic straw with white lithium grease three times and then had no more problems with it until it was flooded out and shorted last month when I replaced it. We also did this successfully in a Plymouth voyager years ago while in the NC mountains, miles from a shop, it lasted for years. WD-40 may make it go quiet for now but later(maybe weeks) it will freeze up, use the lithium grease instead.



Never give up - Never surrender

lglarum wrote:Apparently the noise is coming from my radio. I had turned it all the way down before and the noise didnt go away, but tonight when I turned it off, the noise disappeared...

it could be the radio picking up interference from the alternator. thats my thought.

Thank god i found this forum because i have the same issue just a tiny bit different. Hope this helps because this is mostly likely to be it.

When I start My car (2000 SSEi) i have the whine sound coming from the engine, and the more i step on the gas (RPM) the faster and louder it gets. But after like 40 min of driving it disappears. So I was thinking wat was the last thing i fixed in this car and it was the SC belt and one of the pulley tensioner. So i took a close look at them and seen that the other pulley tensioner was shakin very little as the belt spins it. I knew that this occured when i replace one of the tensioners brand new. The new one works perfectly and moves fast but the older one can keep up with it, so that is why its whining. It also seems the people who have this problem are the ones who have SSEi (supercharger). Its not really a big deal to worry about, it will cost like $50 for parts and labor at a mechanic. Im not 100% sure this will work for the people with the whining problem in the engine but its something you should look at. Its not very important but if you got bread (money) like that then fix it ASAP. I'll change mine just before winter hits.

HOPE THIS SOLVES EVERYONES PROBLEMS.