Conflicting ideas/suggestions chirpy clutch
Hello all! I have an occassional chirping-like whistle noise in my car, which I suspect is coming from the clutch. I've been to 5 garages, none of them conclusively can tell me what the issue is because it is intermittent. Some say input bearing, some say TOB, some say pilot bearing, one other has said I would have to replace my entire transmission and clutch completely. The car is a 2007 Fiat Punto.
The facts:
- The noise only happens when the car is warmed up, about 10+ minutes of driving,
- The transmission shifts fine,
- One one drive you might hear the noise a lot, on the next it could simply not occur at all,
- The sound is a metallic chirping, whistling sound. Sometimes almost like a bad serpentine belt,
- Sometimes it's loud, sometimes it's barely audible,
- The sound goes away completely when the clutch pedal is pressed down fully,
- The noise occurs in neutral at idle (850 RPM), and goes away when you rev it anywhere above 1100 RPM,
- The pitch of the noise is constant,
- The noise is audible when in gear as well, when not under load, under about 1400 RPM,
- Sometimes the noise just disappears after a minute or so when idling,
- The clutch feels normal, not high or slipping,
- Ever since I noticed the noise a week after I bought the car in January, I have not noticed it getting worse or better.
Some say it can't be the throw-out bearing because the noise goes away when the pedal is pressed down, others say it can ONLY be the TOB because of this. I'm getting a lot of conflicting information so I'm looking for some insights. A definitive answer is probably not happening, but I'd gladly take some advice on what you might think.
The car is at near enough 200k miles. The service history is missing a great big chunk pre-Covid, so I do not know if the clutch has ever been changed, and if so, when. In the past 2 years, it did get a new alternator, water pump, starter and wheel bearings. So I wonder if the noise is something inconsequential.