Technical Occasional whining noise?..

[Stew N]

Recently I’ve been having a little problem with my 2001 Punto 1.2 8v.

After having the ECU replaced I have been experiencing a strange, kinda whining noise, although i find it hard to believe the new ecu has anything to do with it... It's only occasional and usually happens only once or twice during a journey.

It usually occurs between 30-50mph, regardless of revs or gear, or if I'm accelerating or decelerating....its only once happened while stationary.

It's a hard sound to describe, I think its a rotational sort of a noise, its not banging or anything just a whine-ish noise, the pitch does occasionally vary but it's the same sort of noise.

I'm quite stumped as to the cause....

Thanks

 

[a1ant]

Hi,
Any idea of roughly where its coming from? It could be a cam belt tensioner bearing (How long since you had your cam belt changed?) or could be a clutch release bearing.
If it was the clutch release bearing, then it would go away or come back when you put you r foot on the clutch. Does putting your foot on the clutch effect it at all?

Hope that helps
Alan

 

[Xen]

It could be a cam belt tensioner bearing

ive had 2 mk2 1.2 8vs with whining... both times it was tensioner, so id go with that too

 

[Mal126]

Kick the missus out the car , that'll stop the whining !

 

[Stew N]

Hi,
Any idea of roughly where its coming from? It could be a cam belt tensioner bearing (How long since you had your cam belt changed?) or could be a clutch release bearing.
If it was the clutch release bearing, then it would go away or come back when you put you r foot on the clutch. Does putting your foot on the clutch effect it at all?

Hope that helps
Alan

All I can really tell about the position of the noise is it's in front of me while driving, as soon as i drop below 20-30mph the noise goes, so to have the engine running and bonet up to locate the area is impossible....

I believe the belt's the original, the cars done about 50k, so due a change soon really.
The noise is the same regardless of clutch position.

ive had 2 mk2 1.2 8vs with whining... both times it was tensioner, so id go with that too

Thanks both for the suggestion of the tensioner, I'll check that out.

The fact the noise seems to be soley road speed related, rather than engine speed is really confusing....

 

[Punto.Power]

Does the noise fade away once the engine has been running for a while? The whinning noise is very common on the puntos and most cases it ends up being the cambelt tensioner.

 

[Xen]

try put it in neutral, start the car from cold, let it idle for a few seconds, then floor the throttle... see if you can get the squeel. if not, while the cars still cool, try gradually increase engine speed. the whine on both mine were usually between 1500-3000rpm while cold.

 

[alexGS]

I'm quite stumped as to the cause....

Here's one that completely threw us a few years ago. A friend had an Uno 70 that would idle quite badly sometimes, OK at other times. When idling badly there was a squealing/whining noise. It also occurred when driving at about 30mph in top gear.

Do you want to know what the cause was... no, really? It was the ignition coil! We tried changing the coil for another one but the noises persisted, only intermittently, so next we tried changing the ignition amplifier module on the distributor (on later cars this function is built into the ECU). That fixed it.

If you imagine the noise made by an old TV, it was like that, but coming from the coil. The frequency (pitch of the whine) was constant - it did not change with engine RPM.

I was reminded of this weird circumstance by your symptoms (ECU change) but it is probably a lot more likely that you have a mechanical cause as the others suggested Incidentally I just replaced a cambelt tensioner bearing on my Uno Turbo - that made a fixed-pitch sound that stopped at higher engine RPM. So I think that would be my prime suspect on your car.

-Alex

 

[a1ant]

All I can really tell about the position of the noise is it's in front of me while driving, as soon as i drop below 20-30mph the noise goes, so to have the engine running and bonet up to locate the area is impossible....

I believe the belt's the original, the cars done about 50k, so due a change soon really.
The noise is the same regardless of clutch position.



Thanks both for the suggestion of the tensioner, I'll check that out.

The fact the noise seems to be soley road speed related, rather than engine speed is really confusing....

Hi mate,

If your car has done 50k miles and is still on its original cambelt from 2001 then I would recomend changing it asap anyway. As part of the cambelt kit you get a cambelt tensioner and its easy to replace once the belts off, so its not going to cost you hardly any extra to eliminate it.

Cheers,
Alan