Ims bearing failure?

[keeley]

When I drove the car to the mechanic today....it sounded more like a loose heat shield...but did not make the noise the whole time....is it possible that a BEARING is failing on a pulley or a failure of the water pump?

[BoxsterSteve]

You could have one of many things happening.
A loose exhaust heat shield is easy to find, tap away at the pipes from underneath with a rubber mallet.
You could have a bad water pump, as you mentioned, or a crapping out idler pulley.
You'll have to pull off the serpentine belt to check.
Good luck with your search.

[rexcramer]

If you really think it is or might be your IMS bearing. STOP DRIVING IT NOW, until you can confirm it one way or the other. Required qualifier attached; IMHO.

[kk2002s]

Originally Posted by keeley

When I drove the car to the mechanic today....it sounded more like a loose heat shield...but did not make the noise the whole time....is it possible that a BEARING is failing on a pulley or a failure of the water pump?

So this whole fear cloud that hangs over these cars related to the IMSB recently took me by the short hairs.
Drove a couple hundred miles the day before, no issues, no noises. Started it the next day and bad bearing noise - Wholly S!$% it's happening to me!!!
Hold on, hold on, Calm down, get a grip. Listened and it was coming from the front of engine. Took the front engine cover off and very apparent it was in the drive belt system. Removed the belt and all quite. Finally narrowed it down to the Tensioner pulley bearing
So take a breath. Fortunately there are so many other parts that can fail on these cars that you don't have to jump straight to the IMSB