Hey everyone,

So toward the end of this winter, I'd say about early/middle of March, whenever I turned my car on when it was below 30 and I would start my car I would hear this really loud annoying squealing noise come from my car. I initially think it's the serpentine belt. I pop the hood and the belt looks good and it is not falling off any of the pullies or tensioners.

I get back in the car and make my usual K-Turn that starts my morning commute. Mid-turn just before I hit full lock I lose power steering and the "Charging System Service Required" message comes on and the Battery light on my gauge cluster comes on. At this point, I muscle the rest of my K-turn and when I straighten out my car and start driving away all the warning lights go away and I have full power steering again. The rest of the day the car is fine.

The next morning same situation happens and the morning after that I start just driving straight down my road and take a longer route to work. Now the loud squealing happens when I turn my car on to go home for work but it doesn't last as long as it does in the morning because I think it is getting warmer.

After all of this, I think Its either my power steering motor or my alternator or both or something else entirely. I don't have any mechanical mods and only a few bolt-ons. I would really love some input on this so I don't buy parts I don't need and install things that are perfectly good.

Thanks for reading this long post. Cheers.

 

something is up with your accessory drive. Either your serp belt is slipping bad, something is seizing up, or both. For sure you will need a new belt, so get one and then remove the old belt and by hand spin all the pulleys. You want smooth rotation without any binding. If anything doesn't match that description it needs further examination. If everything seems good put on the new belt and see if the problem is solved.

 

Thanks! I'll take a look at it tonight and order a new belt. I checked the belt already and it is in really good condition but if I'm gonna remove it to check the free spinning of the pullies might as well replace the belt then.

 

Yup. On our Ralliart the belt tensioner pulley would be noisy at cold start until I replaced it when I did the serp belt at 80k mi