2009 Mazda BT-50 Pricing and Specs

Conventional wisdom says the first place to start looking is the turbocharger and its plumbing. A turbocharger operates at very high speeds and a whistling noise is quite common. What you shouldn’t have, however, is a loud version of that noise, or a whistle that is suddenly louder than ever before.

Cracked or leaking turbo-plumbing can allow the noise to escape, but a turbocharger with a worn bearing can also suddenly become louder in its operation. So that’s where to start looking.

Why does the noise drop in the higher gears? Perhaps because you’re cruising in those gears and not accelerating hard as you do in the lower gears. Less throttle input means a slower turbocharger speed and a drop in turbo volume and pitch.

This sounds more like a gearbox that isn’t selecting fifth gear properly, rather than one where it’s leaping out of fifth. For it to pop out of gear when cruising along suggests it’s not getting into gear fully in the first place. You might be able to adjust the shifter’s position and alignment and therefore get fifth gear to engage more fully.

There’s also a chance that this refusal to select fifth gear is the result of bent or worn selector forks within the transmission itself, and that’s a gearbox-out job unfortunately. So the first step is to get underneath with a torch while somebody inside attempts to select fifth gear. If the selector linkage runs out of range of motion, you might just have an adjustment problem which can be pretty easily sorted.

You should be running a 5W-40 oil.