Now I know there is many possibilities to this so here it goes. I was driving down the expressway and at about 55mph the car begins to do a little vibration and I hear this weird sound . It almost sounds like a squeaky pulley but that does not make any sense because wouldn't it squeak regardless of what speed I am going? I think there are two problems here. First is the vibration. What would cause that? Ubolts? Second is this high pitched sound. This sounds so stupid but what can it be.
My first guess would be a U joint taking a dump. If your U joints have grease zerks on them, I would try shooting some grease in them and see if the noise is still present. If it goes away, I would replace them.
It's plausible that your harmonic balancer has gone bad. See if you can move the crank pulley by hand (up and down or side to side). If so - I'd suggest that is your problem. If you find that the vibration and noise are not connected (which I suspect they are), inspect the belts to help determine the source of the noise. Ensure that any component using a belt is free to rotate (pull the belts and see if the pulleys rotate freely). A bearing might have gone bad. Usually, the belt will have burnish marks (smooth/slick burn marks) from spinning around the pulley. Just my Good luck.
Now that you mention it I tink that might be the issue. when I start the car there is a small knocking in the engine and then goes away when the car warms up. I looked up the prces on a harmonic balancer and they go anywhere from 100 to 550 bucks! I want to purcase the right part and get it done right. Any recommendations on wich one I should get? performance or stock?
My car started doing something similar and I traced it to the rear wheel bearings may be something worth checking.
Your vibration could be as everyone stated allready...or...It could be a bad tire/bad wheel balance as well.Regarding the noise...cant hear it from here but...Make certain you have nothing under hood/under car rubbing/contacting moving parts like the drive shaft or a dust shield rubbing on a rotor.Frm your avitar it looks like you have mags on your car but if you currently have hubcaps on it...Pull the hubcaps off and see if it goes away.I have had hub caps cause a squeak/squeal...whine.Good luck!!!
You should try and localize the sound. get a passenger or guest driver so you can sit in diff parts of the car and see where it is loudest(my grandfather would sometimes even ride around the block in the trunk, hehe oldskool). you should do this first to make sure exactly what parts need to be bought because spending hunderds on the front of the engine to find it was the back of the engine or trans or rear end kinda stinks......
