Hey folks,

My transmission is making a high pitched whine when in gear (D, R, 1+2 & 3), that goes away only when in park or neutral.

The whine gets louder as I accelerate, but mostly goes away when I'm off the throttle. At freeway speeds I can barely hear it, but it's possible it's simply being drowned out by road noise.

Any ideas what this could be?

Thanks.

 

What's the fluid look like? Burnt? Full? Dirty?

 

Recently I had a noise when I accelerated. Thought it was transmission, then flex plate. Turned out to be the engine leaning forward on the fan shroud - the rubber on the new engine mounts started to shift a bit and the fan shroud was loose.

Point is, make sure it is not something else. Look for the small things first, moving parts, drivetrain, etc..

Like Toaster suggests, check trans fluid first. If it shifts fine, it may be something else.

 

Trans fluid is clean and filled to the correct level.

Could it be a torque converter going bad?

What could cause the whine to disappear completely only in park or neutral?

 

It could very easily be the torque converter.

In park and neutral the trans is in neutral so there is no load on the torque converter allowing the turbine and impellor to spin at the same speed. If its dying it may make noise when the two pieces are spinning at different speeds. Does the noise go away when the converter locks up?

 

My answer to that is...possibly. At around 50mph I can't hear the whine, unless I floor it and it downshifts to a lower gear. Not sure if it's because the road noise is drowning it out due to the lower rpms, or if it's actually going away in OD.

I did a test tonight going 50 and I pressed on the brake a little to lock the converter up... the rpms jumped, but there was no detectable whine either before or after... until I either made it downshift by getting on the gas, or slowed down enough for it to downshift for low speed.

Ideas?

 

Sounds like the torque converter to me but I would take it to a trans shop to be sure before throwing parts at it.