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2007 Whine at highway speed

Discussion in 'Gen 2 Prius Care, Maintenance and Troubleshooting' started by abq sfr, Jul 8, 2012.

  1. abq sfr

    abq sfr New Member

    Joined:
    Mar 28, 2007
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    Location:
    Albuquerque, NM
    Vehicle:
    2007 Prius
    My 07 has started with a whine, you can hear it starting at around 50 mph, it gets louder the faster you go. It can only be heard with the go-pedal depressed if cruising at speed or accelerating, if you let up on the go pedal even slightly to decelerate the noise goes away. My initial suspicion was something in the drive train, perhaps the transmission. The dealer looked, said the water pump (the ICE one) is leaking slightly from the weep hole and quoted over $700 for that one repair. I'm pretty sure they said the sound is not the water pump. Thinking of trading it in, repairs are so expensive on these, it has 78,500 miles, and trade-in is around $10K still. Anybody have an idea what could be causing the whine?
     
    #1 abq sfr, Jul 8, 2012
  2. seilerts

    seilerts Battery Curmudgeon

    Joined:
    Mar 7, 2010
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    Location:
    Santa Fe, NM
    Vehicle:
    2005 Prius
    Well, if it is a whine that is tied to road speed rather than engine speed, then it will be something between the transaxle and the wheels. Wheel bearing hum will be the same whether or not your are on the throttle. So initial signs point to the transaxle. It could just be differential whine. Ever had your transaxle fluid replaced? Another thing to check would be transaxle MG temperatures. If you are in Santa Fe regularly I could take a look at it, otherwise I suggest Jim's Automotive in ABQ for an evaluation.

    Oh, $700 is absurd for a water pump replacement. What dealer was this? It should be a $350-$400 job.
     
    #2 seilerts, Jul 8, 2012
  3. abq sfr

    abq sfr New Member

    Joined:
    Mar 28, 2007
    690
    3
    0
    Location:
    Albuquerque, NM
    Vehicle:
    2007 Prius
    American Toyota, quote might have included transaxle fluid replacement . Whine frequency seems to change a little with vehicle speed, not rpm. We were just in SF on Thursday, went to Beaver to check out the new Prius models and Camry. Will the Scangage readout MG temp? Interesting thing about water pump, Consumer Reports 2012 starts showing white dot on cooling system for 2007, 2006 and before goes worse, so might be a common problem.
     
    #3 abq sfr, Jul 8, 2012
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