My car’s making a weird "whuă" noise that’s coming from the engine bay. It increases and decreases with engine speed so I'm thinking it has to be something that’s spinning directly from the engine. I don’t know if it’s a belt or a pump or the transmission or something else. I’ve heard it before coming from other cars but never from mine. I’m not sure what it is. Any help would be appreciated.

Here's a short video I took last night:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEdv...ature=youtu.be

My car is a 2006 base manual with little over 91,000 miles. I just had all 4 shocks and the rear tires replaced on 11/15/14. It's due for an oil change around 93,000.

 

Sounds like the power steering pump, have you checked the oil in it?
Can you have some one Rev up the car while you are listening under the hood?

 

Thanks Speedy. The power steering fluid is at the correct level. I checked the noise on my own and it's definitely coming from driver's side of the car, near the belts. I'll get someone to rev the car later on today, so I can get a better idea of where the noise is emanating from.

 

From what I could hear from the video, seemed like a power steering whine, could be a idler pulley.
As loud as it is when you have a ear under the hood you should find out where it is coming from.

 

It sound like bad bearings in one of the idler or tensioner pulleys.

 

The idler pulley lost lubrication and was the source of the noise. Its been replaced and everything sounds normal now. Thank you guys for the feedback! Out of curiosity, how much should a maintenance shop charge for an idler pulley? Is there a thread on here that has a list of up-to-date links for various crossfire parts?

 

Rockauto lists 7 tensioner pulleys for the 2003 slk320 : $48.79 - $186.79
for the NA crossfire, 6 of them : $90.79 to 186.79

idler :
8 for the MB : $11.73 - 30.99
6 for Chrysler : $21.79 - $30.99

as you can see, it often pays to look for a part under MB rather than Chrysler.

( the MB slk320 and the NA Crossfire are mechanically the same )

the tensioner at $48.79 for the 2003 MB slk320 is this one :
More Information for ÜRO PARTS 1122000970

the idler for the MB at $11.73 : http://www.rockauto.com/catalog/more...311&cc=1417104

 

Good to hear it was a easy fix.
Back to turning heads driving around now.
GL