I started noticing an intermittent chirping sound coming from the passenger side of the engine a couple of weeks ago during startup and idle. I want to say it sounds a little like a bearing going bad. I thought it was the drive belt due for a replacement so I replaced it today with a Goodyear Poly-V belt. Upon starting up the car, the chirping sound was there again. My car has about 89k miles on it with a 15% pulley. I've been searching around NAM this afternoon looking for some clues on the cause of this. Is this the water pump, timing chain tensioner, drive belt tensioner, or idler pulley bearing?

Anyone else experienced this before? Can someone shed some light on this?

thanks

 

Idler pulley, belt tensioner pulley, alternator, or AC compressor clutch, you need to get in there with a stethoscope to determine what is making the noise. If it is just a slight chirp you may or may not be able to tell by removing the belt and spinning each pulley by hand as of yet.

 

My 2006 JCW started doing the same thing. I don't think it's a bearing because my car only has 24K miles.

 

The chirping seemed to have gone away after the belt replacement, but the chattering is still there. I've managed to record a video of it this morning when I started up the car.

 

Crank pulley starting to come apart?

 

Interesting...

My belt only has 4K miles on it (I changed it when I replaced my JCW pulley W/Alta 15% pulley).

 

You may have suppressed the symptom but not the cause. One of your pulleys is probably failing and caused damage to the belt. Remove the belt again and inspect all of your pulleys. Pay particular attention to the bearings in the idler and tensioner, and check the crank pulley to see whether it has separated from the hub.

 

Have you changed out your timing chain tensioner? Mine sounded very similar. My old tensioner was crunchy.

 

I also changed out my idler pulley at the same time. Both jobs are fairly easy