powertrain "whine"?

bcuda

My daughter's AWD has developed a noise (whine?) - the pitch is directly proportional to the speed - indicating that it has to do with something in the "driven" part of the drivetrain. It doesn't change when shifting gears or engine RPM or steering position. I haven't started real troubleshooting yet, but suspect it might be the transaxle since the noise seems to be coming from the front and center. It seems unlikely to me that both wheel bearings would begin to fail simultaneously, but would like to hear if anyone else has had the same issue?

PF_Flyer

Sound conducts through vehicles oddly at times, making it hard to pin down an exact location, so even it is a wheel bearing, it wouldn't necessarily have to be both. But given that the pitch changes with speed, I think that your suspicion of the transaxle might be justified. My experience with wheel bearing noise is that volume might increase as I turn and put more load on the culprit, but I wouldn't have described the sound as a "whine" most of the time.