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Squealing Noise When Accelerating .


WinDrop
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Hi Guys,

Hope you all had a great weekend ;)

I have a little problem. I have noticed in the past that when I start the car it does has a Squealing noise then after some time it stops. Have been told by a friend that it's not a big deal.

But from today it started to have the same kind of Squealing noise when I accelerate. But also, not always, it's just when I'm accelerating.

Could you please advise what could it be?
I have found that it might be a fan belt or cambelt but I'm a little bit out of funds at the moment so I can't even take my care for diagnostics and check it.

Could you please advise what could be possible causes and how much would it cost to fix the issue?

It's a Ford focus Year 2001. 1.6 Petrol Hatchback

Thank you.

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Hi and welcome to the forum, it sounds like the alternator drive belt slipping under load, cost around £20, it can be a bit of a fiddle to do..

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Hi and welcome to the forum, it sounds like the alternator drive belt slipping under load, cost around £20, it can be a bit of a fiddle to do..

I don't mind wasting my whole day with a car. That is absolutely ok with me.

I want to learn more and more about mechanics. I'm a computer engineer & programmer but I would also love to learn more about cars so i can fix things like that so I don't have waste 100s of pounds for servicing.

Is it possible to do it with normal spanners and/or screwdrivers? Or do i need any special tools? Do i need to lift up the car and access anything from the bottom?

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No special tools needed for this job, take a photo of the belt before you take it off, so that you know which way it fits, if you have space to get to the belt, do it from the top, if not the bottom.

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Hi,

I have read some articles about it. It say that it has to be changed if there are some cracks all over the belt. But thing is...i don't have any... :(
Here are some pics:

20130731_173159.jpg
20130731_173219.jpg
20130731_173227.jpg
So i assume that it's not the belt that is faulty in this case.
What else could be wrong with it? o_O
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could still be the belt. rubber can get a bit stiffer over time which can cause slippage

also look out for any moisture on the belt...such as a leak from the water pump (thats the larger pulley in middle of pics)

another possible is a worn tensioner or guide pulley..they can dry out and cause the noise on initial start up/acceleration...but most likely, its just the belt

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could still be the belt. rubber can get a bit stiffer over time which can cause slippage

also look out for any moisture on the belt...such as a leak from the water pump (thats the larger pulley in middle of pics)

another possible is a worn tensioner or guide pulley..they can dry out and cause the noise on initial start up/acceleration...but most likely, its just the belt

Damn, i do have a feeling that i will have to get it down to a garage for a diagnostics.

but the thing about them is that they will not be able to tell it for sure as well. Or they will?

It's more or less just a matter of changing the parts one by one and finding what exactly is faulty.

Right? Or not? :)

Btw, what could be consequences if i don't change the belt of w/e is faulty?

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if it was me, i would change the belt anyway, especially if its original, and go from there

not sure what you mean bt w/e faulty....but

belt can just be annoying, but if it is slippage, can get worse and effect anything the belt drives, such as w/pump, alternator charging etc

tensioners/guides can break up if the bearings within are causing the noise, this in turn will throw the belt which might in turn cause further problems

if something is leaking onto belt, then yes, problem can get a lot more serious if left.

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if it was me, i would change the belt anyway, especially if its original, and go from there

not sure what you mean bt w/e faulty....but

belt can just be annoying, but if it is slippage, can get worse and effect anything the belt drives, such as w/pump, alternator charging etc

tensioners/guides can break up if the bearings within are causing the noise, this in turn will throw the belt which might in turn cause further problems

if something is leaking onto belt, then yes, problem can get a lot more serious if left.

How can i check for a spillage?

Start the car and look at the belt and things around it for anything while somebody else is accelerating?

Or there might be any better way of checking it?

Thanks

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By the way, I'm sorry for being so annoying. But I'm looking for a difference between a fan belt and cambelt and I can't seem to find what is the difference?
Is it the same belt or are they two different ones?

Thanks

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Two different ones - the one in your photos is the fan belt (or auxiliary drive belt or loads of other names I forget!). The cambelt is hidden from view 'inside' the engine and is what drives the camshafts. This one is toothed as it must remain in sync between the crankshaft pulley and camshaft pulleys for the engine to work. Some engines use a chain instead of a belt for this.

Regarding spillage, just look around the area for anything wet that could be dripping onto it, probably easier (and safer) to get in close when it isn't running though!

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they are too different belts,on most cars that have cambelts this tends to be covered usually by a cam cover while your fan belt and other belts are exposed so you can see them,hope this helps

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Thank you guys for the help. I do appreciate it. I know I'm annoying but I just want to learn :(

I have dome some more research and i think that best thing to do is to change:

  • Cambelt Kit (includes cambelt itself, Idler and Tensioner pulleys)
  • Fan belt
  • Alternator belt (I think it's same as fan belt)
  • Water pump

I hear people are saying that best thing to do is to change all of these at the same time.

Don't know how much is it going to cost me but hopefully i will be able to do the job for £250

If I do change all the belts at the same time it will cost me just a little bit more then changing one fan belt as the mechanic will do everything in one go.

What do you think. Is it worth to do all of this?

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cambelts on the 1.6 should be changed at 100k miles or 10 years...so up to you if its not due...but if you do, yes, its important you change the whole kit and not just the belt

you dont need to change the water pump at the same time as this is drivern by the auxillary belt, not the cam belt...only takes approx 2 hours to replace,from scratch, so really, up to you if you change it same time as aux belt....

easiest way to eliminate the cambelt/pulleys with the noise, is remove the aux belt, run the engine for short time to see if noise is gone...if it has, then its aux belt or pulleys...if it hasnt then cam belt assy needs checking

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cambelts on the 1.6 should be changed at 100k miles or 10 years...so up to you if its not due...but if you do, yes, its important you change the whole kit and not just the belt

you dont need to change the water pump at the same time as this is drivern by the auxillary belt, not the cam belt...only takes approx 2 hours to replace,from scratch, so really, up to you if you change it same time as aux belt....

easiest way to eliminate the cambelt/pulleys with the noise, is remove the aux belt, run the engine for short time to see if noise is gone...if it has, then its aux belt or pulleys...if it hasnt then cam belt assy needs checking

Is Aux belt same as auxiliary belt same as serpentine belt and same as alternator belt? :)

As far as I know if you remove the alternator belt you are not allowed to start the engine as it might do serious damage to it.

Or that relates only to Timing belt (aka cambelt) ?

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fan, aux, serpentine or auxillery belt is all one and the same...this is the belt you have pics of

the cam belt is totally different, its behind the covers that are behing the aux belt

you can run engine briefly without aux belt, long enough to know if squeal has gone or not..but dont drive it, and try not to run engine for more than couple of minutes

you shouldnt rotate the engine in any way, whilst cam belt is removed, but starting it is a real no no

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fan, aux, serpentine or auxillery belt is all one and the same...this is the belt you have pics of

the cam belt is totally different, its behind the covers that are behing the aux belt

you can run engine briefly without aux belt, long enough to know if squeal has gone or not..but dont drive it, and try not to run engine for more than couple of minutes

you shouldnt rotate the engine in any way, whilst cam belt is removed, but starting it is a real no no

Oh, cool. That is a very nice tip.

Will try and see can I remove the fan belt. Hope I will be able to do it with my very poor knowledge base :)

Anyway. Thank you very much for help. I will update this topic once i will check the belt and find out is it the one that makes the noise.

By the way, will it be the same belt that makes noises when I start the engine and when I accelerate? Or could it be because of different belts?

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Damn, I'm starting to hate this car...
Was driving back from home and a yellow Malfunction indicator lamp (MIL) came on.

I did went to many local garages but they are were closed.

Then i went back home and did the little trick with the error codes on the small LCD screen.

It gave me DTC 9318 which end up to a low battery (less than 10v)

But if you think about it's not quite possible as my car starts very good. If battery would be so low the car itself wouldn't really start up. Or it still would? o_O

I don't know how old the battery is as i only own this car for like 3 months now. (no wonder it was so damn cheap...has 100s of issue...)

What could happen to the car itself if battery is so bad but it still starts up fine?

Thanks.

P.S. I have read that if alternator (Fan belt, serpentine belt...the one that I am planing to change) cable is not good then it might not charge the battery while driving. Can that be true?

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squealing could be related to battery being under charged...but could also be a seperate problem.

i know the focus suffered a wiring issue from the alternator, though its not something i have come across myself, but sure there are members on here that can give you the necessary info with this.

battery can start the vehicle with volts that low, especially in the warm weather, if the battery charge level is low, it will soon kill the battery though so need to get this looked at sooner rather than later

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squealing could be related to battery being under charged...but could also be a seperate problem.

i know the focus suffered a wiring issue from the alternator, though its not something i have come across myself, but sure there are members on here that can give you the necessary info with this.

battery can start the vehicle with volts that low, especially in the warm weather, if the battery charge level is low, it will soon kill the battery though so need to get this looked at sooner rather than later

It is very strange but i think that Focus integrated error reporting system is not working properly.

I did went to my friend's garage and asked him to check my car for free. He was kind enough and did it.

He connected to cars computer and scanned it with professional hardware and it said that my lambda sonde is out. And that's the reason why the light came up...

So why the hell did LCD screen showed me a completely different error?

I was very confused and asked him to check the battery, he did that as well and battery is completely fine.

So the question is. Does ford focus secret reporting system does give a false information?

Anyway, I'm ordering a new lambda sonde right now.

See will that fix the issue.

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gone off on a bit of a tangent here :)

to start with, lambda sensor wont cause a squeal.

also not unusual for a sensor to flag up out of the blue, but be ok...it may well have gone out of sync for a short while, if enough to trigger light then PCM tries to compensate..quite often, turn off engine, restart and back to normal never to return...put it down to a delicate, complicated, exposed system having a little quirk.

did he test the sensor with either dedicated tester or maybe live data, or was it just that was the fault code logged?

thinking out of the box for a while....lets say for whatever reason the battery volts dropped to 10v...even if only for a short while...well that lambda sensor needs 12v otherwise the heater circuit fails and therefore flags the code...quite plausible when majority of other sensors work of a 5v reference.

so maybe your dash was correct, and the lambda sensor is flagged as a symptom of real problem, not the cause.

i would concentrate on the squealing, and get the battery/charging system fully checked, have the sensor retested once this is done as chances are you could be getting a swerveball

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Hi WinDrop,

I have a 1.8 TDCi that used to have a squealing problem, especially from a cold start. I tried loads of things, but it turned out that my battery had a very poor cold cranking rating. I bought and fitted a new battery with a higher cold cranking rating and it seemed to do the trick. If you think about it, the battery needs alot of juice to start a cold engine. So if you have a battery with a poor cold cranking rating, it's gonna struggle to get things going, especially with all the ancilliaries modern cars have such as heated windcreens, air con etc, causing the auxilliary belt to squeal. I can't remember off the top of my head what my rating was (I'll have to go and look tomorrow) might be worth checking your battery, before you go to too much expense ;)

Fair play for you for doing it yourself, I'm still learning :)

Hope you get the problem fixed!!!!

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Hey,

Well, sorry, I probably switched from one problem to another very fast.

The squealing noise problem was never related to the lambda sensor. It was something that was bothering me and I just want to get it fixed :) I checked the belt at the garage today and I been told that it's fine. It's something else that is making that noise. But that will have to be investigated.

Reason why I wrote about the lambda sensor was because engine management light came on on my dashboard.
After I ran a ford focus error reporting function (holding down that button on dashboard and starting the engine) it gave me an error DTC 9318 which is related to a low voltage.

Today I did test my battery in a garage and it's fine. Charging system is also fine.

Then they connected it to the computer and actually scanned the system. It said the cause of the Engine management light is the lambda sensor. (Well, I really hope it is as it said that the problem is in the catalytic. So my friend just recommended me to change the sensor.)

But anyway, it's kind of weird that when you read the error via build in error reporting system it say that it's an DTC 9318 error while when you connect it to the computer it say that it's a error in catalytic.

Hope this makes any sense :)

Anyway, I will try and change the sensor and see will it help. It's only an 10 minute job there.

Will keep you updated on how things are going with the car ;)

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  • 5 years later...

Cam belts are snapping between 70,000 miles and 100,000 miles. A descent garage should tell you this. Also worth checking:- There is a nut at each of the suspension lower ball joints, located behind each wheel. One of the nuts was turned the wrong way, touching the wheel plate.  Check the lower suspension behind each wheel.

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