I removed the plastic engine cover and isolated noise to be in the pulley/belt area. At idle it's noticeable but when accerlerated quiets down a lot this happens when air condition is off. Any ideas which pulley it could be ? Thanks Bill

 

Does the noise change if you turn the steering wheel?

 

Hey thanks for the reply, sounds does not change either way when turning steering wheel.

 

What year? Mileage? Is the belt original? How old is the belt?

 

Eliminates the powering steering pump and you've indicated the sounds occurs with the A/C off. That leaves the alternator, the water pump and idler tension pulley (which would be my first choice). Take a 3-4' chunk of heater or garden hose, stick one end in your ear and then point the open end at one of the suspect components. Moving the open end back and forth should help you isolate the location of the noise. On the older versions with the 3.5 liter V6, the water pump is buried under the timing cover and water pump noise is seldom noticed or hard to discern. NovaResource is right about the belt condition and if it hasn't been changed for a while, a good place to start would be a new belt.

 

I had a whining sound in my 2007 Entourage.The problem was an idler pulley bearing.(don't know which one). Cost was covered by warranty.

 

It is the idler pulley. Very common problem. Under warranty 5/60. There is only one idler pulley

 

I bought a new idler from a nearby dealer for $32 and installed it on my 2008 Entourage in about 15 minutes including replacing the serpentine belt. There are actually 2 pulleys not associated with some other piece of the engine (e.g. AC or alternator) - there's a tensioner pulley and an idler pulley. The one that fails is the idler pulley - the cheaper one for a change. It's the pulley between the AC and the alternator.

The new pulleys are less beefy than the old ones - the pulley body appears to be a stamped metal cup - it's only got mechanical support between the bearing and the surface the belt rides on at one end of the pulley. The old pulley was black plastic with support between the bearing and the riding surface across the entire length. Hopefully the engineers have done their job in designed this thing.

There no trick to it - remove the plastic engine cover, use a wrench on the tensioner pulley to release tension on the belt (it takes a 19mm socket), remove the belt, pry off the plastic cover from the idler pulley, undo the bolt, remove the pulley, install the new, the rest is reverse of the above.

I also replaced the belt at the same time - it's also only $32 and the van had 40K miles on it.

 

I have a Hyundai Tucson and when I accelerate it makes a whistling sound nonstop I’m clueless to what it is. Does anyone know.

 

A good part of the time a whistle when accelerating can be caused by a possible vacuum leak in the air intake system. You might look for a hose clamp that became loose on the intake tubing or a hose that just could be on it's way off.Sometimes when the air filter is replaced if the parts are not correctly reinstalled , it can create a place for air to get sucked in other than the inlet only.