I started my 2000 civic ex and away i went.
About 3 miles into my ride to work i hear the sound that to me sounds like a belt squeal then a belt brake. i start watching the temp guage and started looking for a place to pull over. as i am slowing down to pull over the car is still making this rotating squealy grinding noise. never heard a sound like this before in any vehicle.

so i get stopped (turn the car off) lift the hood and everything appears to be fine.
start the car back up and sounds fine and i continue down the road.
drove 40 more miles to get to work and not another sound.
wierd.
has anyone experienced this or know what and if something is soon to go wrong.
car has 206,000 miles.
Thanks all

 

How did you expect to find the noise under the hood if you turned the car off when the noise ONLY happens when the car is running? Check your belts.

 

maybe your timing belt is rubbing against the timing belt cover, either on bottom or top? but this doesnt make a squeeling noise, also check to see if your belts are old or loose like stated above

 

Sorry guys, i forgot to mention that i started it after i raised the hood. :-)
also the noise stopped after the restart and hasn't done it again, yet

 

so does it happens when the motor is cold? sounds like a old belt. check your alternator belt, ac and powersteering belt

 

was the A/C on? My girlfriends 98 Had a similar problem. It was the a/c compressor binding up and causing the belt to spin faster then the pully.

 

this would make a lot of sense and sound a lot like what i heard.
my a/c was on briefly (just long enough for me to turn the blower on and push the a/c button off). but i have been having issues with the clutch on my a/c grabbing and working when it feel like it. what i mean by grabbing is sometime when my a/c wont come on i can rev it or down shift to get the rpm's to build up enough friction for the clutch to catch. make sense? sorta
so yea my a/c compressor is on the blink.

 

I experienced almost the same squealing scenario a few years back. At first it happens just a few times a day. Later on it became more frequent specially in traffic. It turned out to be a failing condenser fan. The problem occurs intermittently whenever the fan doesn't turn or only turns slowly. The fan was on its way out. It may or may not be your problem. Just a point to watch. It might be some other things like a seized bearing or a loose belt.