Hi,
I'm helping a friend with her car, it's a 2006 Honda Accord EX V6 coupe w/ 56k on it. It has a very loud whining noise that gets louder with RPM's. When listening, it definitely comes from serpentine belt area of engine.

She took it to a dealer (2 actually) and they said they thought it was the power steering, either the pump or filter. They replaced the o-ring that I've seen lots of people talk about and that didn't fix it.

I got a used Power Steering pump with 29,000 miles on it and switched it in to her car, and it made exactly the same noise. I would think that it would be a little bit different with a new pump, but nothing. No help.

I then put back the original pump and replaced all the fluid in a similar method to this:

http://www.elementownersclub.com/for...ad.php?t=56834

This also did not have an effect on the sound.

I went to dealer to get a new reservoir and belt, but looked at the reservoir and it had no filter in it (like people on Ridgeline forums suggest) so I decided not to buy this. I looked through parts diagram with parts guy at dealer and determined that there is no filter on the system.

Also, when turning wheel to full lock back and forth, a different noise is heard and it does not effect the whining noise.

A guy at the dealer said these systems are loud, and he has had to replace all the PS lines in order to fix this before.

For some reason I just don't think it's power steering though, but if 2 dealers checked and thought so it must be.

What do you guys think? Are your systems loud, do you just deal with it? Am I doing something wrong here? Would 2 pumps make the exact same noise if the lines are bad? What should I try next? Could it be alternator (no power problems) or AC (no noise change when AC on) or one of the tensioner or pulleys?

What next? Would a video help?

Thanks!
Alex

 

If the pump didn't change the noise, then it seems like it's not the pump.

Remove the drive belt & spin ALL the pulleys. Anything that's not real smooth? Waterpump? Tensioner?

 

Alright I think I kind of did that, and nothing seemed to make too much noise. I was only able to do it by hand really though. I was pretty thorough with the PS pump and Alternator, spinning those quite a bit, as well as the tensioner. None of them seemed to make much noise.

So I attached a belt routing diagram, the only one I could find on the internet. (goes along with http://www.driveaccord.net/forums/sh...light=DIY+belt). I have added labels for Alternator and Tensioner. Is the undefined one the water pump? The pulley on it doesn't look anything liek the water pumps I'm seeing on rockauto.com.

 

No, I forgot you were talking about a V-6. That waterpump might be driven from the timing belt but I'm not sure (never owned a V6).

So that other pulley might just be an idler? Hope someone with a V-6 can chime in.

Anyway, when you check it out, you're spinning it slowly and it isn't seeing the tension of having a belt installed. So it won't make the noise. What you're looking for is any roughness at all as you spin it. It should be very smooth.

 

Yes, the water pump is driven by the timing belt. When the o-ring was changed, was it the new orange o-ring (updated part)? The second pump could be bad too.