I took the belt off of my 2005 Toyota camry. I had the belt replaced recently, no cracks and in good shape. I heard a chirping sound when starting from cold start in the cold weather that last for about 30 seconds and then goes away. Once I got the belt off I spun all of the pulleys and I heard the chirping sound from the water pump pulley. So now that I figured out where the noise is coming from. Is this a problem? Does this mean that the water pump is going to fail soon? It’s not shooting out any fluid yet or anything.
The water pump shouldn’t make any noise.
Replace it.
Tester
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It’s like the line from Dirty Harry, do you feel lucky?
You have a noise, you have competently figured it out, now just fix it before you overheat and damage the whole engine.
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Most likely, the bearings in the water pump are failing. If you turn the pulley by hand, I’d imagine you should be able to feel some roughness in the bearings and/or lateral play in the pulley. There should be a weep hole behind the pulley on the pump (usually). It may be leaking there. If not now, it will later if pump is failing. And it sounds like it is.
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