it whines and stalls

[whining in pa]

I'm having some fun with my '02 windstar. It ran fine for a while, for 65,000 miles actually. Then it started making a whining noise. Like the belt was slipping on something. It would usually do it when the engine was cold, and the pitch of the whine would change with the engine rpms. After a few months of this, the van started stalling, usually at lights or when its slowing down. So I took it upon myself to change a couple of things that I thought it could be. Namely the alternator and the tensioner pully. To no avail. The parts that I changed had no effect so I then took it to my local dealer. According to the dealer, its the cam position sensor and the cam servo that's causing the problem. Doesn't make much sense to me. with the stalling, yes; with the whining, no. Prior to taking it to the dealer and after I had changed a few parts myself, i opened the hood and tried to listen for the problem. When i pull on the throttle, I can hear a sucking noise. I'm assuming that is the idle control valve, so i hope that's normal. The other thing is that the whining sound seems to be coming from the water pump. I'm not really sure what's going on here. The dealer wants $750 for the repairs. A bit steep if you ask me. Any help or suggestions would be appreciated

[DRW1000]

It does sound like you looked at the obvious items.

My understanding is that the cam servo or sensor does whine when going bad. There are threads on here discussing the cam sensor so do a search.

$700 does sound pricey though. The water pump requires that the engine be lifted so hopefully it is not the pump. I could see the water pump at about $700

[whining in pa]

thanks for your reply. The price break down is $120 for the diagnostic, $150 for the parts, and the rest is in labor. I'm going to look into that forum to see if its something I can do myself.