On the way to work this mornning I started getting a high pitch whine from the engine area on accleration. If I put the SS in neutral and press on the accelerater I get the same high pitch whine, so not wheel or bearing related.

Anyone experience this on their HHR?

The car is a 2009 HHR SS with 106,000 miles.

Thanks.

 

Could be a number of things.

You need to raise the hood and try to determine the location in the engine bay the noise is coming from. Also, what rpm range does it occur in ?
Plus. Is your's a 5 speed or automatic ?

Guessing at this point without a little more info, well it would just be guessing.

Any way to take a sound bite or video and post it up ?

 

Yeah, could be just about anything without a little more info. Is your power suffering? Did you check the voltage on the battery circuit? Is the belt in good shape?

 

Flex pipe.

 

I am thinking you are correct in thinking it is the flex pipe. The belt is fine, the battery is charging. When I accelerate hard then the whine becomes a rattle. The HHR has poor acceleration now as well.

 

If you are having poor acceleration accompanied with the high pitched whine, then you could very well have a leak in the boost system or a failing turbo itself.

A flex pipe leak would be after the turbo, so that alone shouldn't effect the acceleration that much.

 

Yes, turns out it is the turbocharger. It has since stopped squealing and is not working altogether.. made the 26 mile drive home from work, at times leaving a large trail of smoke.
The engine light has not come on. I thought there would be a code for a bad turbocharger?

From what I've read $$$ to fix.

 

If you keep driving it, it will throw a hard code. Mad Dr. Phil over at turbohhr.com is selling his stock turbo for very cheap:
Looking for stock parts? Click Here!!

 

The bearings on the turbo were shot.. the fan was frozen. No codes where thrown even though I drove it for two days after and used up a quart and a half of oil in those two days. Runs just like new now. An expensive fix though.