Ford Whines Like a Chevy

I have a 99 F-150 that has a whining sound. To me it sounds like air is being sucked into the engine. It occurs on startup, then dies down, then i hear it again when i accelerate.

Foot off the gas, the whine is gone, on the gas, it comes back. There is no loss of power or performance.

A mechanic told me it was probably the transmission. This doesn’t make sense since I hear it before i put it in gear. He thought i should get my transmission rebuilt before it starts slipping ($2400).

I want to hear from the gurus…

thanks,

Amy

Your heading doesn’t make sense but I’ll see if I can make sense of the rest.

That whining sound may be from the water pump bearing or even a vacuum leak. A small leak wouldn’t affect performance.

Strange noises can come from worn alternators too.

Disconnect the drive belt(s) and see if the noise is still there on ‘stand still’ revving.(Don’t run it for long like this though, just enough to test.

While the belt(s)(and engine) is/are off, turn the pulleys by hand with a bit of side pressure and listen/feel for any amount of wear.

The heading was just to get your attention. See it worked.
I am a girl and I don’t think I should mess around with my belts, but i appreciate your comments because it gives me a lot of good information to go back to the mechanic with. thank you!

I think that mechanic has his winter boat payment due.

Just a little information. Is it manual or automatic and how many miles are on it now. Do you have any record of prior transmission problems and has the transmission fluid been changed?

As a Chevy owner, I take offense at the title. Chevys don’t whine, they clunk and rattle a lot but no whining. Their owners may whine a bit when it breaks every other week.

it is an automatic with o-drive. 140,000 miles–just broken in. i have all my records from the very first oil change–never had a transmission problem since i switched to Fords from Dodges (oh great now all the Dodge people are going to dis me.) and i do keep the fluids up to date pretty well. i think you’re right about the boat payment.

That’s wasn’t needed to get our/my attention. We attempt to help everyone that comes on this forum.

AND it doesn’t matter whether you are female or male. Nice eh? I love this site. Believe it or not I still learn something new every day.

NOW, if I could just remember …

Oh yeah, preventive maintenance is the key.

Oh, so you’re the guy who bought my '81 Chevy Citation after I traded it in! That Chevy was pretty bad, but I have to say that it was a more reliable car than my '74 Volvo, which was the worst piece of automotive “engineering” that I ever owned.