2.5GT whining noise. Solved?

I have an 05 LGT 5MT. Ever since I got it about a month ago its been making a whining noise. I finally got in on appointment at my subaru dealer and they looked at it and said it was a Bearing in the transmission. I'm assuming... input shaft bearing? Which is bad news.

 

Mine would whine when it was in gear, more at lower RPMS. It would also whine when I was coasting and out of gear, clutch in clutch out, it always would whine, just different whines.

 

I'm going may 7th to drop it off and they said I should have it back the 9th or 10th.

 

I'll let you guys know.

**** I'm hearing a whine under the exact same conditions, except mines 5 mos old

You're lucky they didn't just say it was the turbo, that's the response everybody else gets.

yep, that's the line of bs they gave me...

I have noticed that with new camshaft belts there can be a slight whine, but that's no big deal. It will disappear when they have been broken in.

 

Otherwise you have to check what the whining is related to. Is it engine RPM, vehicle speed or what? Only vehicle speed - then it can be a transmission or possible something related to the tires/wheels/brakes.

 

You shall notice that the transmission may have some whining and that it's different from car to car due to variations in tolerance when the car was assembled. That is normal and nothing to worry about. The ones that you shall worry about are if they suddenly appear or changes in the same conditions. To be on the safe side it's always good to have a magnetic oil plug on gearbox and engine and check it for particles on a regular basis. Any residue large enough to be felt with your fingers is indication of bad things on their way. Residue that's visible but can't be felt with your fingers is just normal wear, but you will of course not want those particle circulating in the system, which is why you should have a magnetic plug.

 

Another item on the list is if you have the wrong oil or too little of it. The gearbox and transmission is designed to work best with a certain oil and viscosity and if there is a mismatch or the oil is running low you can get noise too.

 

Also check if the whining disappears if you turn off the radio, since it may be an electrical disturbance. This is normally not a problem on modern cars, but it can indicate that a noise suppressor has gone bad. No big deal and nothing that's dangerous - just annoying.

 

A classic trick to kill noise from differentials are to mash down some bananas into the transmission. This is actually not a joke, but if you have a LSD it may be less effective afterwards. Just be aware that if you are buying a used car someone may have done that to kill the noise already. However I'm not saying that you should mash bananas into your transmission, but it may be useful in case of an emergency.

 

And of course - I suspect that it isn't from the passenger seat the whining comes!

Its weird, mine does it intermittently and its usually when I'm in 3rd coasting through town below, or right at 2K, thats about it, clutch out, however it is still there, clutch in until you really slow down, which leads me to believe that something is hanging on the brake, or something, however its still there while braking, except again when you slow way down. It does whine down with speed, so I'm gonna pull apart the right side of my car today to see if there is something that it could be

Also check if somebody has placed straps on your driveshaft! That's a classic joke...

Haha, Ehsnils.. you might be thinking too far into it. Who knows though.

 

The whine gets louder when I am accelerating but it's always there, like i said clutch in, clutch out, any gear, or neutral.. its there.

 

The pitch gets higher as the car goes faster, that's all. It is not consistent with engine speed, only vehicle speed.

Just got it back last night, Everything is fine. 2nd gear whines but I've read in various places that it's normal for 2nd gear to whine.

 

I'll scan a copy of the service receipt sometime, it has a list of everything replaced.

My 05 LGT 5MT just started making the a whining noise today. It has nothing to do with vehicle speed. I get the same noise when the car is moving and standing still. It gets louder with increased RPMs but is inaudible at idle. The car runs just fine except this noise. I took it to a non-subaru shop and they tested the alternator, it was fine. They seem to think that it's the tensioner pulley and/or belt. It has a little extra play in it which could cause this whining sound.

 

Anyone have any thoughts on this issue?

My tensioner pulley fell apart after making this ^ same noise under these same circumstances for a month or so. Opened the hood, saw the pulley in pieces and took it to the dealer only to be told that it wasn't covered by my extended warranty.

 

Planet Subaru in Hanover, MA wanted $390 to replace the A/C tensioner pulley. That's about $120 in parts, and apparently a couple of hours of labor at $95 an hour. Instead they're selling me the parts for $120 and charging me a $95 diagnostic fee (not kidding). I talked to the service manager, Brett, to see if they could be reasonable about charging me $95 for something that I already knew, and he refused. He said they had to test all sorts of other things too to see if the pulley broke for some other reason. I asked what could have broken it. He said the cam shaft. I said I drove the car to the shop myself. He said they still needed to test it, but when asked what they took apart exactly he stammered and said he thought they took something apart. $95 just to get the car back.

 

Bunch of assholes.

That's why they are called Stealerships.

 

They are all out to make money off of you. You didn't think they in business to do nice things for you, did you ?

 

Find a good local mechanic and do all your busniess with him.

I have one, I just figured a tensioner pulley would be covered by Subaru's bumper to bumper extended warranty. My mistake.

JohnnyD3487, could you scan the copy of your service receipt? I'm having the EXACT issue just show up on my LGT 5MT also.. 2nd gear has always whinned, but now i'm getting it in all gears. Would love to see what they replaced and the total $$ to do the work.

 

Thanks!

I was told that it was normal for the 5mt to whine some throughout the gears. 2nd gear mostly, but 1st and 3rd too. IDK, I switched to Amsoil tranny and diff fluid and it helped a bit, but the entire performance of my transmission is working completely normal. I think people are just finding that their transmissions are making the noise because they are starting to listen for it.

My issue ended up being a bad wheel bearing. Almost sounded like a laser sound coming from the car.

I'll see if I can dig a copy of the service receipt up. It's been quite a while. They didn't charge me for it though, but it was only like a month after I bought it from that same dealership that serviced it.

 

However.. 1st, 2nd, 3rd all whine like hell now. Whatever they did fixed it for a while but i've since put about 40k more miles on it and its doing it just the same. I'm not gonna worry about it now though.