2000 Mercury Cougar V6

About 100,000 miles and makes a strange noise during acceleration, Usually when the automatic transaxle shifts between 1-2, and 2-3. Sounds almost like the grinding sound you would hear if you turned the ignition over when the car was already running, just not as loud (older cars by the way, newer ones don’t make that noise). Timing chain?

You could have a tranny problem… When the car shifts into 3rd gear there is less of a load on the internal gears… Try to keep the car in third gear and see if the noise if better… If so have the transmission looked at by a shop.