Hey, guys. Long time, no see! I've kind of fell off the planet after finals week. Retail during the holidays is just plain sucky. But I made some good money with all of the hours I had. Unfortunately, my car found this out and decided to develop a rather horrid noise. It sounds like a crunchy squeak. I initially thought it was my tranny, but after having my mom torque brake it in the driveway, we narrowed it down to the serpentine belt side (thank the lord). It sounds worse under load, and occurs from about 1100 to 1400 RPM, then it seems to drop off. The belt is relatively new (replaced summer of 2012), and shows no signs of wear upon mild inspection, and seems to have proper tension. I haven't replaced the accessory belt yet, but it didn't seem to have any excessive wear, either. I have no charging issues and no issues with overheating or coolant pressure, so my alternator and water pump seem to be fine. I'm thinking it's a bad pulley bearing somewhere. Anyone have any experience in the area of pulley bearing noises? I'll see if I can post a video sometime soon to give you guys a better idea of the noise.

And I apologize for using you guys for my car, but my car forum, 2GSS, seems to have died out.

And I like you more  .

good to see you back Jas .. errr .. lots of description in your post... but... whats the car? ... whats the motor? ...

dont know about pulley belts bearings much .. and yeah they are probably mostly same/same .. but bit of info on vehicle might help ...

"ahh the infamous 97 Le Sabre dingwallup resonance issue" ... kinda thing 

Air conditioning pulley or power steering pulley. Get under the hood and have someone rev it up for you. You should be able to hear where it's coming from if it's a bad pulley Bering somewhere. I'd put my money on air conditioning. 

It's a 2005 Dodge Stratus SXT with the 2.7 V6 which has, miraculously, reached 111,000 with few motor issues beyond an alternator and an oil pressure  sensor (crapped my pants when that oil light came on).

Anyhoo, that's what I'm thinking too, pliskin. I noticed a greater than average drop in power when the A/C kicked on over the summer. I'm thinking that pulley will be my first victim. I should have about 3 hours tomorrow after class to pull the belt and check out the pulleys. I'll let y'all know how it goes.

They make stethoscopes for auto use, not too pricey. Put the tip (U can use a long phillips or regular headscrewdriver. Put the handle on your ear. Carefully, very damn carefully, put the tip of the screwdriver near the noise source, NOT ON ANY MOVING OBJECT! ENGINE IS RUNNING.

The stethoscope will amplify the noise and when you get close to it it will be obvious.

Probably a failing idler-tensioner pully for the sepepentine belt or other belt.

I can't overemphasize the importance of safety FIRST, moving parts can eat a hand up in a hurry.

regasrds
Mech

If you are not preemptively careful you can really hurt yourself, think of a screwdriver sticking out of the side of your head careful.

regards
Mech

I hear you, Mech. I read about that trick on another forum, and it just never appealed to me for that very reason. I'm hoping to find the culprit with the motor off.

Woohoo!! Crisis averted. It was the tensioner pulley. The old one spun like mad and you could hear the bearings grinding while it spun. The stealership told me the pulley was backordered. My local auto parts store had one. Go figure. The new one is metal, as opposed to that crappy plastic that was in there originally. $17 and a couple hours to grab a new pulley and install it. I'll drive it for a couple days and see if it stays happy. Thanks to everyone for the insight!

Quote from: JAS6377 on January 16, 2014, 11:26:32 PM
It's a 2005 Dodge Stratus SXT with the 2.7 V6 which has, miraculously, reached 111,000 with few motor issues beyond an alternator and an oil pressure  sensor (crapped my pants when that oil light came on).

Anyhoo, that's what I'm thinking too, pliskin. I noticed a greater than average drop in power when the A/C kicked on over the summer. I'm thinking that pulley will be my first victim. I should have about 3 hours tomorrow after class to pull the belt and check out the pulleys. I'll let y'all know how it goes.

the dreaded 2.7 problematic bastiges id try lubing the bearings and see what happens.  does it happen with ac on or off or both, power steering fluid, full or needs filling. am awaiting vid for further guesses

Well, as of right now, my problem seems fixed. With the main belt off, it made no noise. That negates power steering and crank pulleys, which led me to the tensioner. It's either the tensioner, alternator, or A/C. I'm about to head over to my GF's, so we'll see how she does in the cold with the new tensioner pulley.

Quote from: JAS6377 on January 17, 2014, 08:25:59 PM
Well, as of right now, my problem seems fixed. With the main belt off, it made no noise. That negates power steering and crank pulleys, which led me to the tensioner. It's either the tensioner, alternator, or A/C. I'm about to head over to my GF's, so we'll see how she does in the cold with the new tensioner pulley.

Hmm forgot about that one. lmk how it goes Eh?

Well, everything sounds pretty good. The belt chirps at redline, but I'll take that over obnoxious bearings. I don't hit redline much anymore, anyway.

Quote from: JAS6377 on January 18, 2014, 06:33:42 AM
Well, everything sounds pretty good. The belt chirps at redline, but I'll take that over obnoxious bearings. I don't hit redline much anymore, anyway.

awesome my friend. awesome. redline is hard on just about any engine. save for maybe a non turbo 13b

Yep. I used to race against ricers every now and then, but since I got the bike, I feel no need to beat up my car. I'll still put a POS in its place every now and then, but it's got too many miles on it to run it that hard all the time. I'll wait until I get my Speed3 to have my fun lol.

Quote from: JAS6377 on January 18, 2014, 03:10:43 PM
Yep. I used to race against ricers every now and then, but since I got the bike, I feel no need to beat up my car. I'll still put a POS in its place every now and then, but it's got too many miles on it to run it that hard all the time. I'll wait until I get my Speed3 to have my fun lol.

even then do it sparingly lol