I'm the only owner of this vehicle and, for the most part, it's given me 7 years and nearly 85,000 miles of trouble-free service. In the past few days, I've noticed a "whistling" noise coming from somewhere near the transmission or transfer case. I'm thinking it's the transmission because it seems to peak in volume around 1500 RPM in any gear. At a shift point, the noise seems to go away (or at least attenuate to a point where I can't hear it over road noise), only to start again as the engine RPM reaches 1500. The weather here (Anchorage, Alaska) has been rather cold and we've had a LOT of snow in the past week or so resulting in some driving through rather deep drifts. However, I've driven through deep snow in past years without hearing this noise.
Any ideas what I may be hearing? Is it the sound of impending doom and failure?
Thanks in advance.