A whine is the car telling you which part is working hard. The trouble is that a belt noise and a wheel bearing noise can sound alike from the driver's seat, and a contract may treat them very differently. Your job is not to diagnose the part. Your job is to note the pattern clearly enough that a shop can start in the right place and that you can show a claim desk what you noticed and when.
Start with what changes the sound. Park the car, let the engine idle, then listen as it revs gently in park or neutral. If the pitch climbs with the engine, the source is usually tied to the engine: a drive belt, a tensioner, an alternator, or a pump the belt turns. If the pitch climbs with road speed and holds steady at idle, the source is more likely in the wheels, tires, or driveline. Turning the wheel loads some parts differently, so note whether the noise gets louder on a left or right turn, or at low speed in a parking lot. A sound that appears mainly on turns often points to the steering pump or a wheel bearing under load.
Write down what you observed, not what you think it is. Record the speed, whether the engine was warm or cold, whether the air conditioning was running, whether it was wet or dry outside, and whether the sound was steady or came and went. Note the odometer reading too. Keep the note with your service records, because a claim often turns on when the trouble first showed up, and a written note answers that faster than memory will.
Some sounds need a shop now, not a note. A grinding noise, a clunk when you shift, a noise that grows from week to week, or a noise paired with vibration in the wheel or steering should go to a shop before you drive far. A warning light, smoke, or a belt that has come off means stop driving. Waiting on a contract question is never a reason to keep driving a car that is making a bad sound. Safety comes first, and the claim can wait while the car gets looked at.
Next, read the contract for the parts that make noise. Find the section that lists what is covered and what is excluded, and look for belts, pulleys, tensioners, pumps, alternators, and wheel bearings. Some contracts name these parts, some group them under a broad heading, and some leave them out entirely. Also look for wording about wear items, which are often excluded because they wear out with ordinary use, and for any line that says a part is covered only when it fails outright, not when it is worn. Those words decide most noise disputes, so read them slowly and read them twice.
Ask these questions before you sign. Does the contract require a diagnosis before any repair, and who pays for that diagnosis if the cause turns out to be an excluded part? Does the shop need approval before it starts work, and how long does that approval take? Can you use any licensed shop, or only a network shop? If you disagree with a finding, what is the written process for review? Get each answer in writing and check that it matches the contract text. A promise made on the phone does not change the paper.
Noise problems often cost time in diagnosis before any part is replaced, so ask how the contract handles that step. Some contracts cover diagnosis only when the cause is a covered part. Some do not cover it at all. That gap is worth finding out before the car starts making the sound, not after.
If you are comparing contracts, use the published figures on this site rather than memory. The comparison tables list the companies and the terms they print, and the companies that post a sample contract you can read first page shows which ones let you read the full paper before you buy. Checking the exclusions for belts, pumps, and bearings in an actual sample is a better test than any summary, including this one.
Keep your expectations plain. A contract does not quiet a noisy car, and it does not promise that any claim will be paid. It sets the rules for a claim. Read those rules before you need them, and keep your own record of what the car is doing, because that record is the part you control.