chrisco

94 LS400 200,000 miles
When car is parked or stopped at a red light with foot on brake, there is a whining noise coming from engine area. When accelerating, it smoothly goes away. When stopping at a light at around 1200 rpm, you can hear it, then the rpms will slightly drop to 1000 and the whining changes tones, but is still there. Think of your self humming a note and slightly dropping one note at a time (two or three times).... Thats the noise.
Its not very loud, but can be heard from inside the cabin, but not from down the street.
Any advice would help
Thanks

sayow

Does the whining get worse when you turn the steering wheel?

chrisco

No, not at all. It's been doing it now for about 3 weeks. No noise when driving at normal speed or when turning. Only when sitting still on the driveway or stopped at a light.

timmy0tool

iTrader: (7)

most likely it's your power steering pump, but it could also be your idler pulley bearings.

chrisco

OK thanks, is there a simple way to check this without pulling things apart?

sha4000

iTrader: (1)

Could just be your accessory belt. Pop the hood and listen to the area of the belt closely.

AHJ

One way of isolating the whining noise would be to run the engine without the accessory belt and see if there's a difference.

I know that you don't want to take anything apart but taking out the accessory belt is one of the easier maintenance procedures.