Hi Folks,
About a month ago I started the car one morning and heard a pronounced whine from the engine, matching RPM. I opened the hood but couldn't really locate it, was pretty loud though. Drove to work and as I accelerated to get on the highway the whine went away. Couple of weeks ago it was back, and again accelerating into the 4k rpm zone and it went away. Came back last week, though much less pronounced, and it seemed putting on the AC made it much quieter. This time the higher RPMs didn't make it go away, sort of stuck around. I resolved to dig into cause/solution last weekend - of course things got crazy and I just ignored it (hoping it would go away, hah!).
Today it was suddenly much louder again when started, and when I pulled out of my garage and came to a stop the sound suddenly stopped, and the car was sooo quiet I thought it had died. Started driving home and I happened to catch some lights come on in the cluster, when I looked down the red battery light had come on - this was maybe 30-seconds after the whine stopped. Stopped and looked underneath, all seemed to be fine - quiet as a mouse. Drove the 15 miles home in bumper to bumper without any issues and parked it - the light stayed on the whole time except for the two times I got going over 50mph (light went out, but came back on shortly after hitting slow traffic again.)
Not sure if this is connected, but my passenger side turn signal bulb died a few days ago - when I changed it, it sure seemed that the body metal was much hotter than it ought to have been.
The 4R is a 2006 V8 with 95k miles, battery is about 1.5 years old. Sounds like an alternator replacement? Thanks for any and all ideas!
About a month ago I started the car one morning and heard a pronounced whine from the engine, matching RPM. I opened the hood but couldn't really locate it, was pretty loud though. Drove to work and as I accelerated to get on the highway the whine went away. Couple of weeks ago it was back, and again accelerating into the 4k rpm zone and it went away. Came back last week, though much less pronounced, and it seemed putting on the AC made it much quieter. This time the higher RPMs didn't make it go away, sort of stuck around. I resolved to dig into cause/solution last weekend - of course things got crazy and I just ignored it (hoping it would go away, hah!).
Today it was suddenly much louder again when started, and when I pulled out of my garage and came to a stop the sound suddenly stopped, and the car was sooo quiet I thought it had died. Started driving home and I happened to catch some lights come on in the cluster, when I looked down the red battery light had come on - this was maybe 30-seconds after the whine stopped. Stopped and looked underneath, all seemed to be fine - quiet as a mouse. Drove the 15 miles home in bumper to bumper without any issues and parked it - the light stayed on the whole time except for the two times I got going over 50mph (light went out, but came back on shortly after hitting slow traffic again.)
Not sure if this is connected, but my passenger side turn signal bulb died a few days ago - when I changed it, it sure seemed that the body metal was much hotter than it ought to have been.
The 4R is a 2006 V8 with 95k miles, battery is about 1.5 years old. Sounds like an alternator replacement? Thanks for any and all ideas!