Werid whine sound.

firemanls

firemanls

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Ive got a werid whine sound coming from under the hood of my ls. now some basic info on my car:
its a 2005 ls with the 3.9 v8 with 138k miles.

ive checked the power steering fluid which is full. and has been full since 4 months ago. it sounds like its coming from inside or the back of the motor. it happened about 7 months ago then just went away one morning on start up. now its back I turned my car off for 2 hours and come back to start it and it started. my serpitine belt is new. it does NOT get worse when I turn my wheel. and it just goes with my rpms. When I cruise I can barely hear it. but when I left off the pedal to slow down it gets more audible.

any ideas?
 
excuse me. after taking a second look at it. The sound, sounds like its coming from the passenger side of the motor. sorry for the confusion.

P.S. I wish I had it supercharged...
 
I will give you my story. I had a noise similar to what you explain, got the car on the lift and it sounded like was from rear of engine area somewhere, I ignored it and it finally showed it's roots at a bad time of course. In my case wound up being the alternator crapped out on me about 11PM on the Taconic parkway an hour from my home.

If you remove the belt and noise id gone then check all accessories
 
I was told by a couple of friends that I should take the positive terminal off the battery. and if the car dies the alternator is junk if it stays running its fine. and well it died. last night on my way home from a fire scene I had stopped by a convient store to pick up something to drink and when I got back in to start it, it barely started. first I thought it was just my emergency lights at the scene drained a bit of battery but my "ABS" light kept flashing everytime I would use any kind of power. and my "advancetrac" would say it needed to be checked. im guessing now its the alternator. would yall say the same?
 
I am in for alternator!!! BTW abs light was first thing to come on in my car on that wonderful night mine died, what I did though was at 60MPH (ok maybe 70 or 80) tried to reset it by putting trans in neutral turning engine off then attempting to restart engine. At that very moment it came to me that was a stupid move.
 
firemanls said:
I was told by a couple of friends that I should take the positive terminal off the battery. and if the car dies the alternator is junk if it stays running its fine. ...
Click to expand...

While this worked out okay for you... It's a good way to fry the expensive electronics in modern cars. It was a valid test in the 70s and before. My father killed several electronic modules in an 85 Crown Vic trying that trick.

firemanls said:
im guessing now its the alternator. would yall say the same? ...
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I agree that your alternator, or the wiring to it has a problem. It's also likely that you will need to replace your battery now.
 
joegr said:
It's also likely that you will need to replace your battery now.
Click to expand...

The battery I have now is a duralast gold that I just got 2 weeks ago.

And I have seen somewhere on youtube to get to the alternator I have to jack my car up and go from the bottom is that correct? any tips since I will be doing it here at home.
 
firemanls said:
The battery I have now is a duralast gold that I just got 2 weeks ago.

And I have seen somewhere on youtube to get to the alternator I have to jack my car up and go from the bottom is that correct? any tips since I will be doing it here at home.
Click to expand...

Please search this site. It's more difficult than it should be.
 
mlara1129 said:
does it sound like mine does here at 1:11-1:16:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDxv8pnrlDI

New serpentine belt, tensioner and idler pulley completely got rid of the whine...also had my A/C compressor replaced at that time but it was related to the whine?
Click to expand...

I cant really hear it over the exhaust but my serpentine belt was replaced no more than 12k miles ago. along with my a/c compressor. I will try to take a video of my whine and give you the link in a little while.
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpaWQV_l3VE&feature=youtu.be

Forgive my motor looking like crap. yes that is silicone on my coil covers. because at the moment I need to replace both valve covers and cowl cover due to it leaking on the motor and causing the coils to go out.

At the very end of this video about 5 seconds after I turned it off the "check charging system" came on and my abs light kept going on and off. as well as my parking brake
 
Those lights at the end lead me to alternator... most likely your alternator is not charging your battery (fully) and causing the lights to come on.
 
Why not replace the failing alternator before chasing after the whine? There's a good chance that the alternator is the source of the whine and both problems will be solved at once.
 
Im just making sure that the alternator is the cause of the whine too. since I have everything apart might as well replace whatever else could be the cause.
Has anyone ever had a problem with the duralast gold alternators at autozone? I usually like motorcraft but id rather pay 153 for a remanufactured one than 375 for a new one.
 
Motorcraft only!
The other main possibilities for the wine are the idler pulley and the pulley on the tensioner. However, the only thing you would save by doing them at the same time as the alternator is the effort to remove and reinstall the belt.
 
If you want to isolate everything else, you can try spraying each accessory down with silicone lube spray one at a time. Start the car to after each accessory to see if the noise is changed or gone, then move to the next one. If one of the other accessories is causing a noise, this will clear it up temporarily and you will know what else to replace. This is a very temporary fix, but works great for troubleshooting.
 
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