Hi there. I'm new to the forum, joined today.

I own a Fiesta 2003, 1.6 Ghia, completely bog standard.

In the last 6 weeks, I've had to have the front two coil springs replaced, along with the link rod. Cost £216.00.

I've also, this week, had part of the exhaust system replaced due to corrosion...cost, £211.00.

Add this to the cost of a new wing mirror (went to the Ford dealer, rather than one of those crappy pieces of glass they offer at Halfords), which was £30.00, and as you can imagine, I'm a little tired of shelling out just lately.

I parked the car up earlier today and left it ticking over. I could hear, what I could only describe as a squeaking noise (it actually sounds like there's a small kitten hidden in the engine somewhere ) coming from somewhere around the alternator.

Now, I'm not exactly 'car savvy' (I'm becoming more knowledgable...) so I'm not claiming to have the faintest clue what it wrong. I work at a press hall, so we have a couple of engineers who've taken a quick look. They have suggested it could either be the alternator belt or bearing, but aren't 100% sure.

My question is, does this sound familiar to anyone? Am I safe to drive it around for the next month without causing anymore considerable damage? Having shelled out so much lately, I'm not exactly keen to throw anymore money at the car immediately (not that I have any left to throw at it!), but I'd much rather pay £50.00 for something that could be easily repaired, rather than cause further damage and be left with another £200.00+ bill.

Any advice would be appreciated. ^_^

Common failings on the mk6 is the water pump, i had one go silently, place a long screwdriver onto the casing of the alternator with it running check the coolant level and let a mechanic have a 'look' you may just need a new aux belt anyway so dont be afraid to ask a mechanic to look, got any mates who are mechanics or are a loyal customer somewhere?

And also you would have been better off asking this in the fiesta section of the forum.

Good luck.

Moved to fiesta section

Any luck in finding a solution or even the problem?