Hi, thanks in advance for taking a look at my car's problem.
I have a great running 2000 Honda Accord V6. It has around 150k miles.

Problem: Just started a few days ago. Whirring sound, heard inside car, not apparent outside (while driving with door open). From inside the car it sounds like a warped tire/road noise except that it seems to be coming from the center underneath of the car. Begins between 25 & 32mph, increases with accelerated speeds but seems to get as loud as it's going to get at 45mph. Car is shifting normally, RPMs normal.

I'm looking for a mechanic in my area and would like to have troubleshot it to an extent before I turn it over to someone = I'm a college student and on a very fixed income.

 

Well if you say where you're located maybe someone here knows someone or ??

Maybe rear wheel bearings?

Have someone sit in the back seat & listen. When you're inside the car, sounds travel around in some very screwy ways, & sound like they're coming from all the wrong places.

 

Thank you. I'm in Denton, Texas.

My dad is a DIY mechanic (but is out of state) and he was saying maybe rear-wheel bearings too. I checked and the tires have no give when pulled on back and forth. His other thought is that transmission bands may need adjusting. I'll get someone to ride in the back seat today and give a listen so maybe I can get the sound pinpointed to a specific area. If it were wheel bearings wouldn't I be able to hear them outside of the car? Or would road noise outside cover it up?

 

I had a bad rear wheelbearing on a 98 Accord, and it didn't follow the conventional wisdom for wheelbearings.

- It changed very little if at all when cornering

- It wasn't very loud (yet) so it was difficult to hear from outside the car

- It wasn't LOOSE so I couldn't tell by shaking the wheel

When I lifted that corner & spun the tire, it wasn't really very loud. It was more of a metal rolling sound. Not even what I'd call a scraping sound. It wasn't until I removed the brake caliper & rotor that I could spin the hub without any other noise or anything.

Even then, the sound was real subtle because the bearing wasn't carrying any load. I wasn't convinced so I was reluctant to get a new bearing ($). But when I did, that fixed it.

 

I took it up to the Firestone where I purchased my tires in July (Bridgestone Potenza G019). The front left tire was worn on the inside and the wall had a crack running around it's entirety. They were out of that tire and have ordered it to replace tomorrow afternoon. In the meantime they rotated the tires and put the worn one on the back. I can now hear the sound coming from a different area so I'm thinking that was the problem. I've been reading up on reading tire wear and see that one side wear can mean it needs to be aligned "but misalignment could be due to sagging springs, worn ball joints, or worn control arm bushings". And if it's cupping that alignment probably won't fix it for good and could indicate the same problems - "sagging springs, worn ball joints or worn control arm bushings". I guess that's the direction I should be looking in?

 

Good thinking. The sound in my car did NOT move when I rotated tires. I should have mentioned that.