Hi everyone,

This afternoon, I went out for a drive in my Fabia, the first proper A-road spin since the coilovers and wheels went on. I was on the road between Garelochhead (Faslane) and Balloch (Loch Lomond), which is a fantastic driver's road...well surfaced, lots of visibility through wonderful sweeping bends, vivid changes of gradient, etc. I do like this road.

Anyway, at high-ish speed, changing from 4th to 5th, a sudden noise entered the car...a horrible, loud grinding and clattering

'What was that? Clutch? DMF? Gearbox? *******s, this is going to be expensive and a major pain in the ass' :'(

I pull over, and the noise stops. Check under the bonnet...nothing untoward there. Under the car? Aha... One of the heatshields under the car had come loose! The bolts had corroded, the front fell down and the road passing under the car had pulled it back on itself and jammed it between the car and the road... At speed, the resulting noise was horrific.

Poked the heatshield with a nearby stick, and it just fell off! The result? Quiet motoring once again

Anybody else had any heart-in-mouth moments, which turned out to be something simple?

Andrew

Always nice when something sounding horrific, turns out to be not much at all. (That is a great road BTW). Couple of years back, in the Morris Traveller, coming off a roundabout fairly fast, very loud rotational clicking sound, followed by a death rattle. Really sounded like one of the hardy spicer joints in the prop shaft had eaten itself. Turned out one of the wheel nut hub studs had worked loose, and I had a hubcap with one wheel nut and stud rattling around inside.

Boost pipe **** me up a bit, since i was being a pleb at the time

Matt

This Is a fantastic road, always a buzz driving it! Have you been down the old single track military road? It takes you to the same place but I think it was the road that was used before this lovely one graced the land!

Boost pipe **** me up a bit, since i was being a pleb at the time

Matt

My boost pipe popping off too thought it was turbo going lol

LOL, first time i thought that too! Second time i though it was just a boost pipe . . . . . . and was the turbo :(

Matt

Always nice when something sounding horrific, turns out to be not much at all. (That is a great road BTW). Couple of years back, in the Morris Traveller, coming off a roundabout fairly fast, very loud rotational clicking sound, followed by a death rattle. Really sounded like one of the hardy spicer joints in the prop shaft had eaten itself. Turned out one of the wheel nut hub studs had worked loose, and I had a hubcap with one wheel nut and stud rattling around inside.

Same thing happened to a friend of my dad's, who has an early split-screen Moggy

This Is a fantastic road, always a buzz driving it! Have you been down the old single track military road? It takes you to the same place but I think it was the road that was used before this lovely one graced the land!

Yeah I have, I have a lady friend that lives around there :p

Nasty whirring whining sound this winter, turned out to be snow/slush build up rubbing on the tyres.

Best get a new heat shield fitted though as they are there for a reason. Glad it was nothing major.

Travelling on the B840 beside Loch Awe last July.over 20 miles of one track road with passing places.It was raining and getting dark suddenly a horrible grinding noise,stopped got out and fell over a massive tree branch that had got wedged between back wheel and body work.Did not run over it so how it got there is still a mystery but it was facing towards the front of car and being pushed along the start of the branch was near the front bumper.It was only the 2nd day of a two week holiday so feared the worst when I heard the noise but no troubles for the rest of holiday.

The day I was taking home my Polo Mk4 from the main dealer (R reg 1.6cl 3dr)it had been snowing and i got stuck on a slight hill - managed to get the car out and headed home - but it how had a thwack - thwack - thwack noise as I drove along. Turned out to be a plastic bag wrapped around the driveshaft

Had a spring break - went with one hell of a bang but no damage (although not that easy to fix...)