I have a 2005 Camry. 4 Cylinder engine, Automatic Transmission.
I hear a whining sound when pressing on the accelerator pedal. I hear this sound even with the car in parked. It seemed to be coming from the serpentine belt area. I also hear a ticking or rattling sound that seems to be coming from the air box area (I’m just noticing this now, maybe it was always there I don’t know) while the car is in idle. I have done the following, all bullets I have done recently, less than the last oil change ago:
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I took the belt off, it was a Toyota one that had probably less than 50k miles on it and spun the pullies to help diagnose the issue I was hearing. Power steering pulley and crank pulley obviously I could not spin by hand, too large. However, I spun the others. There was no belt dust anywhere.
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The tensioner pulley had some friction in it, I could hear a sound while it spun. I was going to put the belt back on and order a tensioner, however I broke the external hex on the tensioner. I think the strut was frozen up. This was the original one that broke that came with the car. I applied so much torque trying to get the belt back on it snapped off. So, I went to the parts store and got a Littens tensioner and replaced it. This did not solve my noise problem. I made sure the belt was fully on all the pullies and followed the routing diagram. I made sure to use a torque wrench on all fasteners holding the tensioner on.
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I also noticed that the alternator had some noise in it when I spun the pulley. I wasn’t sure if this was the brushes or the bearings inside of it. I had no way of knowing. So I replaced it with a Duralast alternator from the parts store. This did not solve my noise problem. After driving around, I noticed some black powdery substance on the tensioner. It didn’t seem like oil. I thought it could be belt dust or possibly even dust from the new brushes in the alternator. I had no way of knowing. I made sure to use a torque wrench on all fasteners holding the alternator on. I made sure the belt was fully on all the pullies and followed the routing diagram.
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So I took off the Toyota belt, it didn’t look bad at all, or look like the dust was coming from it. In the process of attempting to put on a new Gates belt and swap it out for the older Toyota one to see if it would solve my problem. I snapped the hex off the Littens tensioner. I made sure to go slow, I don’t know, I guess I just struggle getting the belt back on. But anyways, I went to the parts store and got a Gates tensioner and put that on there. I used a torque wrench again when installing the Gates tensioner. I was able to get the brand-new Gates belt on. This did not solve my problem. I followed the routing diagram.
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I checked that I have proper amounts of oil in the engine and the transmission.
Thanks for any help in further diagnosing this issue. The only other thing I could of checking, is taking the valve cover off, and checking for valve clearance. This would at least be something that I could measure and get a definitive yes or no on if it’s bad. When I look online, I see that pulley alignment and not having the proper tension, can result in belt dust and chirping sounds. However, I have this car has an automatic tensioner, and pulleys whose alignment I don’t believe can be adjusted.
This was when I had the Littens Tensioner on there. I noticed I could grab the tensioner by the external hex and wiggle the tensioner around, which seemed odd. This is despite using a torque wrench. Not sure if this is an issue or not.
I currently have a gates one. Not sure if this issue still exists (if it’s an issue or not).
This is the ticking sound with the car in idle and in Park. Not sure if this is related to the whining sound I’m hearing while pressing the accelerator or not. This video is how my car is right now, with the new Duralast Alternator, new Gates Belt, new Gates Tensioner
TLDR: Noise, chirping sound, when pressing accelerator. Replaced serpentine belt, serpentine belt tensioner, alternator, noise hasn’t gone away.