Water pump or power steering pump.

249000 miles on my girl noticed a winning sounds sounds like when your power steering pump is out of fluid.
Question is....
Will a water pump always leak or will the bearing just start to go out.
I will check when I get home this week. Going to inspect every pully just seeing what some people thought...
Also is there someone in this group that gets toyota parts on here. Do I need to be close to that person's location.

 

I would say virtually always. Maybe there is a case where it didn't leak, but I have never heard of it. The reason for this is that the failing bearing causes shaft vibration/movement that feeds back through the mechanical seal mounted to the shaft, and almost inevitably that will damage the sealing faces resulting in leakage before the bearing failure.

I believe you have an alternator bearing failing, but I could be wrong.

 

Check your power steering fluid... odds are it's that mine started sorta whining 1k miles back, I checked and it was slightly low, so I topped it off and it was gone... my water pump spread the wealth across my engine bay when it went 200k miles back.

 

Idler pulleys, tensioner pulley, and the fan hub should all be checked too.

 

@Vince I am in the process of replacing some these parts. I noticed on the Gates website that the water pump may drip after installation and that is normal. Just thought I'd share cause it's interesting and related if you need to change it...https://www.gatestechzone.com/en/news/2019-08-water-pump-weep-hole sound very important to make sure your cooling system is clean prior to install of a water pump.

 

Well I found the problem... It was the idler pulley.. pulled off the pully seen the grease spun out if it. Also might have been my fault could have been to tight when i replaced it. but it made it 10 months. New dayco replacement on its way.