Took my new Superb on a long drive to Mull of Kintyre last weekend and used the air con for the first time. There is a definite whining / whistling noise when the AC is turned on, and it disappears when it is switched off. This never happened on my previous car (W-reg Passat) or on my wife's new Octavia. Does anyone else notice this, or maybe it's an issue with my car or with my overly sensitive hearing (although my wife hears it too, and her ears are not as accute as mine)?!

The only slight issue I have with my new car.

Thanks folks!

Get that sometimes on my Sorento (which thankfully is going in 2.5 hours when I pick up my Elegance Estate).

Tend to get a faint whistling if face level air vents are closed or partially closed. Whistling seems to come from outside cabin for some reason.

Edited 1 September, 201015 yr by P-G

If you still get this with all the vents open it could be a loss of air con refrigerant. I've had this on my wifes Renault Laguna and a friends Escort Cosworth, in both cases it was because the refirgerant was low, (a lubricant is also added to the air con systems on these and also my Toyota) and when it gets low you can hear a whining from the air con compressor.

I now get the air con regassed on all my cars annually after I had this on a SAAB 9000 which unfortuantly resulted in the compressor bearings overheating and causing a small fire This I mut point out is extremely rare.

Thanks guys. Wouldn't low AC refrigant be unusual on a brand new car though? Thinking there must be some other reason.

Edited 2 September, 201015 yr by JB.

Thanks guys. Wouldn't low AC refrigant be unusual on a brand new car though? Thinking there must be some other reason.

I had this on my car ... the dealer regassed it 3 times in as many months ,,,, they found one of the pipes hsd a small fracture ,,, they ended up using an air con specialist his equipment was more accurate at finding the problem . Skoda approved the extra checks all done under warrantey

Interestingly, I have a 60 plate Elegance DSG with the 170 CR engine on loan from the dealer at the moment... it whines too, and there's only 1,700 miles on the clock!!

Make sure you open the vent's, also try to pinpoint where it's whinning, set the thing to run fully automatic, if it's gas leaking it will be gone in a matter of minutes and will shut the AC down anyway, get down near the pump area, and listen, you could simply be hearing a different sound as the belt tightens to drive the pump.