Have a pulley whining

Most whining sounds come from the belt area and are caused by a bad bearing in a pulley. You can remove the belt and start the car to see if the noise goes away. If it does, you need to spin all the pulleys by hand to check for roughness/looseness.

Whining is typically one of two things. The power steering fluid is low or the water pump is on its way out.

The bubbles are more or less normal.
I would want to know for sure the noise is coming from the pump and not another pulley on the engine. When you turn the wheels you put load on the pump and the drive belt which loads the other pulleys too.
How about taking a long piece of heater hose and using it to listen around the belt while a helper turns the steering wheel ?

Take the belt off and spin all of the pulleys. the bad component should be obvious. high pitch whine is usually alternator bearing for the 98 3800 its timkin part# 100ccab or it can be the power steering pump(but the pitch will change as your steering if it is that) water pump, idler and tensioner pulleys(if you have to change either one, replace the tensioner itself). if you have the supercharged model there are a few parts that can whine( or the s/c is low on oil.)

sounds like a belt slipping. I would have that checked by a local garage!

When you checked the power steering fluid level were there any indications of excessive foaming? There are three things that would cause a whining noise from the power steering. 1- low fluid (you checked that so that is not the culprit), 2- loose steering drive belt (you should not be able to press down on the belt more that about one inch between the steering pump pulley and the crankshaft pulley), 3- power steering pump bearing worn out.

Just a thought- remove the oil filler cap when the whine is present - (this checks if PCV valve is faulty, causing high crankcase vacuum, which in turn causes a whistling/whine noise as air leaks past engine oil seals). Worth a check.

Try listening with a short piece of hose pipe to locate immediate area/source of noise.

Hi Pullerwife,

I have a few suggestions for you,

First of all, check your air filter, make sure its clean, not clogged, and doesn't need to be changed.

I don't know how handy you are, but if you are fairly handy, check the idler pulley bearings, if your not, have a shop check it out, as a last resort.

Power steering pump/fluid being low is also a possibility, but thats usually more of a lower pitched whine then what you describe.

You say once the vehicle is warmed up, the whining stops. Does Weather seem to be a factor as well?

Hope I've helped, and don't forget to rate.

Lazaruselite

Hi this is a common problem for these cars the whine noise is coming from the fuel pump and once they fuel pump starts whining the life of that pump is very short the best thing to do is replace the fuel pump and your fuel filter it shouldnt cost much mainly under $100.
Anderias

I would check the tensioner.... mine whined and i didn't know what it was till the plastic pully siezed and burnt right off

Robert