No idea what is wrong. Took it on a about an hour drive and noticed it was making some stranger than usual noises. Didn't think anything of it, til I drove it home, got almost back and noticed the sound get louder like something with the suspension or a tire, but it seemed to handle alright. It's a loud squeaking noise from the belt area. It has oil, the belts are ok. Not sure what it could be! Sounds bad though. What do you think is wrong with it!? No check engine lights and not overheating either.

 

It certainly sounds to me as if you may have a failing accessory belt tensioner pulley. Other threads on here can help you locate and diagnose it better than I can.

If this is the problem and it seizes up completely it will shred the belt

 

Ok thanks I will look into it. For the serpentine belt right?

 

04xtype04, from what you are describing, it can be a number of things. The best advice that I can give you is to first start up the car and see if the noise seems to be coming from the left or right wheel well area (use the engine block as a noise blocker). If you are looking at the passenger side of the car, the best thing that I can say is to spray a few of the pulleys that you see there with something like WD-40 and then see if the noise goes away. If yes, then you know it is one of the pulleys that you just sprayed that is your problem. If not, pick a few more and spray those. Repeat until the noise changes/goes away. May have to do a few rounds of this to narrow it down to a single pulley. Keep in mind that on things like the alternator, you want to get the WD-40 to the bearing that is behind the pulley, not on the center of the pulley (like for an idler pulley).

If the pulley is really bad, sometimes it will develop some play and once you have it narrowed down to a few, you can try moving the pulley with your hand (engine off of course) and see if you can spot any looseness.

Once you get things narrowed down, the fix will become pretty obvious. The common problems I have seen is the alternator bearings dry out and get noisey and the water pump bearing.

 

Thanks Thermo. I was just thinking of doing this. I was wondering if there is something I could spray that would regrease the bearings? What about white lithium grease? WD40 would just a temporary fix? I'm wondering if it's something to do with the alternator because the battery power seemed low. The noise is terrible though. I will see if wd40 helps.

 

WD40 didn't get rid of the noise, although it may have smoothed it out just a little. It's definitely making a loud clicking rattly noise. It does look like it's coming from the belt somewhere. Maybe the biggest pulley wheel towards the bottom in the center? Not sure what that one is for, but the noise is coming from around there the best I can figure. Reaching the pulleys even with wd40 is a challenge. Something probably just needs grease but it's all crammed in the engine and wrapped with the belt so greasing it would be nearly impossible without taking it apart. Looks like I will have to take it in to the shop.

 

04xtype04, because of it being in the engine bay and not sealed, both options (WD-40 and lithium grease) are going to fade away pretty fast. The WD-40 is just easier to apply to narrow down where the noise is coming from.