i have a 2000 accent, auto w/1.5, and here as of late there's a weird whinding noise from under the hood. At first i thought the transmission was going out because it would get louder and "wined-up" when i reved the engine. But on a warm day i turned the front defrost off, and wha-la no more noise. i also got a bit more power with the defrost off. Tryed it on other settings, like straight-to-the-face vent and florr only and no noise no bog down. WTF? is there a familly of squirls in my dash? What i'm asking is if this is common, and if there's a way to shut it up. Is there a fan motor in the firewall? its been so cold latly and i've been working alot of hours and i haven't had time to mess around with it. Any pointers would be a great help. Thanks ya'all.

 

my 2000 accent auto loses power and stalls when i fill the tank also sometimes when i accel or put my foot on accel it just sits there!! the car has been log book serviced but has continued to do this for a while any ideas or solutions please

 

Sounds to me like your alternator is going bad. The bearings are wearing out and causing it to consume more power from the engine when more electrical power is needed. also causing the rpm based wine...

Could also be that you need a new belt or atleast tighten the belt on the alternator, however you wouldnt experiance a loss in power you would actualy experiance a gain, minimal but still.

 

Darren, i don't know about the full tank issue you have there, thats kinda strange. Maybe you have some chimpmunks messing with your car. Probably related to the squirrls in mine

 

i bet its the a/c compressor. When you turn the defrost on, it automatically kicks on the a/c to take care of any condesation, when you turn the defrost off, the compressor stops putting a load on itself. If you wantto check this, there isa real easy way,spray a bit oflude(like wd-40) by the bearings of the pulley for the a/c compressor,if the noise stops momentarily, theres your problem, just be carful not to spray a lot and not to spray the belts, you're just doing this tosee if the noise stops. good luck

 

I didnt even think of that lol... I dont have ac in my car, so not one of the things i deal with... Id check that before the altinator....

 

no need to look for small woodland creatures. when the defrost is requested, the pcm turns the air conditioner compressor on, which is where the noise is coming from. sprayind wd40 on it will not do too much unless the clutch is slipping, in which case it will just quite it down. since the op stated there was a loss of power when the defrost was requested, i doubt the clutch was slipping (i could explain why, but many would be bored to tears, so i shall spare you).
the lack of power (more than normal) indicated a high level of friction, which indicates loss of lubricant in the ac system (and most likely a low refrigerant level as well), and the whine indicates a worn bearing.
since it *is* engaging, there is *some* refrigerant in the system. there is really no way to know exactly how much (again, a long, drawn out speach here), so i suggest getting the ac system reclaimed before you attempt to do a diy on the compressor.

notes: make certain if this is going to be a diy that you have a clutch assembly on the compressor, or the proper tools (and know how) to swap over the clutch. also, make certain that you have oil for the new compressor as many of these are shipped 'dry'.

hope this helps.

df

 

You guys rock! That's got to be what it is. Thinking back now tword the end of summer/fall the ac started to loose its cool. Didn't think i'd need it till may-jume anyway so i just left it off. Didn'tknow it was connected to anything else. so i guess i'll just try and recharge the ac and see what i have to work with and take it from there. Thank a bunch

 

recharging the system will not make the noise (as described) go away. it sounds like a compressor unit is going to be needed.

df

 

Yup your right the recharge did little more than make my hands coldlooks like its time to bypass the faulty compressor. Now just how would i go about doing that? Get a shorter belt and skip the pully? Probably would have to diconect the electronics leading to it huh? i think it would have been easier to deal with the squirrls