Squeal at high revs

[chr15gb]

A relative left their car at mine for a few days so I said I'd have a quick look over it, IS250 2005 plate.

It had a new exhaust and it sounds horrid, almost like a diesel. No comparison to mine at all.
The brakes are shocking, I've bled them but the pedal still goes too far, perhaps I should've bled for longer. It has had a new rear caliper.

I was going to replace the  spark plugs, did the first easy three then the heavans opened so no chance to do the difficult three. They will be taking the car home first thing tomorrow so that will have to wait.
One of the spark plugs was loose, oil all over it. It wasn't even finger tight.

The car was low on oil so I topped that up and took it up the road and back. Seemed okay aside from the brake pedal. Brakes work ookay but I don't like the travel.

Switched it to flappy pedal and booted it, holy moly, a hideous high pitched mechanical scrapy belt about to give up type noise. Only at high revs 4k plus.
I'm thinking this is the water pump about to go belly up. Anyone experienced similar?

I didn't record the noise and I'm not going to repeat it just in case it gives up on me.

I polished the headlights up as best I could given the weather and wiped down the interior to freshen it all up.

I'll be planning all four brakes to clean, grese the slide pins and longer bleed, the other three spark plugs, cabin filter and whatever else I can find. There wasn't even a single plastic clip on any of the engine covers so I've donated a few of mine.

 

[madasahatter]

I bleed brakes with engine running, seems to work best. Doesn't sound the like its been looked after by previous owner.

[Spock66]

I think you are being the good Samaritan, but anyone who treats their car like that and would seem does no basic maintenance checks will probably not even notice all the effort you have gone to.

[chr15gb]

Youngsters for you, kids are scared to death of opening the bonnet these days.

I've never bled brakes with the engine running. May give that a go next time.

[BC99]

Did have belt noise from mine with failing water pump bearing. Can't remember how exactly bad it was, but it wasn't horrendous.

If you move the tensioner to get slack in the belt, see if you can wobble the water pump pulley.

[H3XME]

On 9/30/2022 at 6:57 PM, chr15gb said:

Youngsters for you, kids are scared to death of opening the bonnet these days.

Don't put us all in the same bag, Chris! I'm 26 and do everything I can myself 😁 I hate the idea of paying someone hundreds of pounds for something I can do myself. It's easier than ever to do anything on your car today with so many guides online and YouTube videos. That car sounds like a right bag of 💩. Okay, not doing stuff yourself and not caring about the car to a point where it's neglected at two different things. Some people just don't care. I'd be embarrassed to drive around in something neglected like that. It's meant to be your pride & joy!

[Spock66]

31 minutes ago, H3XME said:

It's easier than ever to do anything on your car today with so many guides online and YouTube videos.

That certainly helps, along with the sophisticated OBD capability of modern cars.

But many routine maintenance tasks such as changing spark plugs are way more complicated than in cars from 20-30 years ago.

[chr15gb]

Thanks guys. I bled the brakes a bit more but the pedal travel is still too far.
I'm thinking Master Cylinder or Servo.

He has only had the car 6 months or so so I''ll cut some slack on the maintenance.
Bad exhaust rattle on start up, sounds like the front section isn't secured as the sound comes fron the rear of the engine underneath.

Wish this had happened going into Summer instead of Winter!

Taking a good look at the old plugs, you can see the crush washer hasn't been crushed at all. No idea who fittedf them (but at least the previous owner tried). Need to get to the others just in case they are the same.

Car is gone now until they come back to mine. I hate taking tools down to them and trying to work at theirs, I'm always missing something I have in my garage.

[normski2]

3 hours ago, chr15gb said:

I hate taking tools down to them and trying to work at theirs, I'm always missing something I have in my garage.

Totally with you on that. Two weeks ago I did the callipers and brake pads on a near neighbour’s IS250. He thought I’d be doing it on his drive … no chance I said. Bring it over to me as I have all the tools and kit here at my place 👍🏻