You will probably have better luck posting this in the laundry forum. Here is a link that might be useful: Laundry Forum

Well, the service guy came out last week......and wouldn't you know it.......Murphy's Law held....... the dryer wouldn't make the noise while the service guy was there!! UGH! Well, we were doing laundry last night and the dryer started making the noise again. Figures.... So, I grabbed my digital camera and recorded it. It captured the sound good enough. I'm not a techie, so is there any way I can post a video file to gardenweb? I'm also gonna contact my dealer and see if there is a way I can get the file to him so he can hear it.... thanks.

Do you use softener sheets in the dryer? Try cleaning the sensor bars with rubbing alcohol. There's a diagnostic for the sensor bars thusly: With the power Off, press and hold Auto Dry Down, then press Power. It'll beep once, but no panel lights come on. Press Auto Dry Up five times. A few lights on the panel may flicker. Brush your fingers or a damp cloth over the sensor bars, and the flickering indicator lights will change to show it's sensing moisture. The lights should drop back when the moisture evaporates off the bars. If the lights don't change, then there's a problem with the bars or sensor circuit. Press any cycle button (Delicate, Regular, etc.) to exit the diagnostic. By return duct, I assume you mean exhaust duct. What does the 6-foot distance involve exactly? Is that the distance from back of the dryer to the wall? Or is it the FULL length from back of the dryer to outside the house? If the ducting to outside the house is longer, have you examined/cleaned the FULL length of it to confirm there's not a clog somewhere? The machine can generally detect an exhaust blockage by way of high element temperature due to insufficient airflow. It will signal a problem by beeping and flashing the Auto Sensing light during the cycle, and it should continue beeping and flashing after the cycle ends until any panel button is pressed. If the blockage is bad enough, the elements will overheat and trip the manual-reset overheat protector. The dryer will then run but there'll be no heat until the reset button behind the front panel is pressed. Shouldn't be any need to replace the heating elements (yes, there are two) unless something is actually wrong with them. Was there a confirmed problem with them, or was the repairman replacing them just trying to find a fix to the problem? Wrinkle free element? There's no "element" for that. (Or are you using the word "element" to mean "feature?") The dryer simply tumbles the clothes in unheated air for 30 seconds every 5 minutes, for a maximum of 256 tumble periods. It can't run more than 24 hrs. 5 mins x 256 = 1280 mins 30 secs x 256 = 7680 seconds 7680 seconds / 60 secs in a min = 128 mins 1280 mins + 128 mins = 1408 mins 1408 mins / 60 mins in an hr = 23.4 hrs

Wow - you are amazing! Since my posting - the repairman finished the planned repair (actually pully which I think is on left) but wasn't satisfied that he didn't know a source for the spots (and that I was going online to find an answer :) so he kept looking around and found his hand got dirty around the right side (I think this is what he said) and that the bearing (which is on the right) had been destroyed. So I guess this also contributed to the squealing and is also the cause of the spots - there were blackish balls of stuff in there - they seem to be the exact stuff in my clothes when I rub them on a rag. Now, why this all happened, I don't know. And how I am getting my laundry done before vacation when I am working the next 2 days is another good question but at least it seems that will be fixed correctly and my spots should be gone once it is fixed! (part takes maybe 4 days to come in)