I had the same problem
It had squealing noise in the belt area. It started out as intermitted, but later on developed more seriously.
I had all serpentine belts change (all 3 of them) and the noise was still there. Mech thought it was the bearing and had it change too, and it wasn't that at all. The mech tried on a new alternator since it had a pulley, but it wasn't the problem either.
At the end it was the cramshaft pulley that was making the noise. Changed that it was good. They said the cramshat pulley was a bad design, the rubber in the middle tend to wear out and would shift back and forth when you drive; hense the noise.
I thought it was the water pump, but if you don't hear a grinding noise then its not (you'll know the difference, tis really loud)
Check it out & see if that's the case, hope this help
Tuesday, March 14th, 2006 AT 2:36 PM