Technical High-pitched whine/ringing noise?

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Technical High-pitched whine/ringing noise?

gar074

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Anyone have any ideas what this might be?

My B's suddenly started making a loud, high-pitched whine/ringing noise - I thought at first that my phone was ringing! It's stays the same volume and pitch, irrespective of engine & road speed, and seems loudest from inside the cabin - in fact, it's difficult to hear it over the engine noise from under the bonnet. It seems unaffected by temperature - the noise remains constant whether the engine is hot or cold.

it's not a problem when on the move, as the road & wind noise soon block it out, but it's loud enough to be annoying when stationary or going slowly - and when machines suddenly start making unusual noises, it's usually a sign that something is wearing out, overheating or otherwise knackered and about to fail.

All suggestions gratefully received!
 
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OK - mystery solved ...

My missus, who is (a) an engineer with (b) better hearing than me (not having mis-spent her youth at heavy metal gigs) archly pointed out that the ringing noise is coming from the BACK, not the front (hence it sounds louder from inside the cabin), which very rapidly led me to the fuel pump as the source of the offending noise.

So, back to the search box for noisy fuel pumps ...
 
ha ha. I was hoping to answer this one. Felt sure it was the fuel pump. It can be a little noisy but that does sound a bit loud for you to really notice it. Good luck. I'm sure I have read about this somewhere on here.
 
Yeah - I've already found some very helpful posts - I'll whip the pump & filter out and give them a good clean. Hopefully that will sort it.

Mine always makes the usual whirring noise on start-up, but until now it's been whisper-quiet thereafter, so there's deffo something up with it.

There are some wildly different prices for replacement fuel pumps on the net - ranging from £70 to over £200. Hopefully it won't come to that.
 
leave the pump where it is as it is a fiddely job + requires a new gasket.
Try a new fuel filter first as its a cheap and easy job
 
Cheers - I was going to tackle it next weekend, but I'll do the easy bit first!

At the moment, the whine from the fuel pump is coming & going randomly - it whined from start-up yesterday, but today I went for a 30-mile blast in the evening sunshine (simply glorious - just what Bs are made for!) and there was no whining at all (not even from the passenger seat!).

Hey ho!
 
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My car & van quite often has a whine.

Funny, as its always when the wife's in the passenger seat. ;)
 
Mine's recently developed a new passenger-seat-based whine - from my daughter (can I drive it please? when are you going to add me to the insurance? etc etc)
 
Mine's recently developed a new passenger-seat-based whine - from my daughter (can I drive it please? when are you going to add me to the insurance? etc etc)




Oooo, sounds expensive ;)
 
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