Hi All,

Just wondering if anyone else has ever experienced a strange, intermittment ticking noise from behind the steering wheel / inside the steering column? My Superb has started doing this recently (last month or so), but I can't narrow down the circumstances leading to it. It doesn't seem to be related to when the car engine is cold or warmed up (can happen on either). I did think it was related to me moving the steering wheel further forward, but when I pushed it back the noise still came and went. It can last for anything from 5 seconds to 3 or 4 minutes, and can be a constant regular ticking sound or an occasional isolated ticking sound!

Does anyone think this is something to worry about, or is it common? Maybe it's something like the climate control doing something, but I haven't thought to turn off the air con when it's happening yet (only thought about the air con today). The car is still under warranty (for another 3 months) so I could take it to the local Skoda garage - but that pretty much means taking a day off work and there being no guarantee that the problem will occur when in the garage (and knowing my luck it wouldn't!).

Cheers,

Declan.

It is most probably the clock spring, this transfers all electrical connections for the air bag and maybe the steering wheel controls as well.

It is most probably the clock spring, this transfers all electrical connections for the air bag and maybe the steering wheel controls as well.

Thanks Ozkso. Is it something I should be worried about?

If it is the clock spring a failure will be indicated by an air bag fault on the dash and most probably a failure of steering wheel controls.

Just thought I'd update this thread with my latest findings.

The ticking is still happening. In fact, it happens every time I drive the car, and always seems to come on within 5 minutes of start-up. It doesn't matter if I start from cold or warm, the ticking comes back 5 minutes after turning the ignition on again. It lasts for about 30 seconds, and then goes away completely until the next re-start!

Now, here's the odd thing. I drove the car back to Ireland at Christmas. About 400 miles door to door each way, and roughly 500 miles during Xmas in Ireland. So about 1,300 miles give or take. In all those miles, over the space of 10 days, I only heard the ticking once - soon after starting up and taking off from London. It didn't come back when re-starting after a service station stop, after parking and waiting to board the ferry, after coming off the ferry at either side (having being turned off for 3.5 hours) or at any point whilst I was in Ireland. As soon as I was back in London, the ticking came back (the day after we came back - not as soon as the car sensed it was in London!).

So what the hell is it? Lol. The only thing I can think is that there is something about how I drive the car in London that is causing the ticking. We live in a built-up area, so usually when I drive in London I don't get above 3rd gear for about half an hour or so. In contrast, on the trip to Ireland and whilst in Ireland, I would have been in 5th gear within 30 seconds of take off on every trip virtually (the joys of living in the countryside in Ireland!).

So can anybody, anybody at all, put 2 and 2 together and give me some idea what might be going on? Am I being paranoid about the 3rd gear idea, could it be something else, or what? As I say the ticking goes away after 3 seconds of appearing, and doesn't seem to cause any problems to the handling or performance of the car. I'm just mystified as to what could be happening here.

I have had a similar issue of a sort of rattle/squeak coming from the steering column. If you look at the right and left storks for the lights and windscreen wipers there is a cowling that wraps round them covering the steering column. Now on mine the left stork had a problem where the cowling was rubbing against the storks collet causing a sort of rattle and squeak as the car travelled over certain types of road, usually the time where the road surface had broken up a bit causing the car to vibrate rapidly. I have tried to pack it out by removing the top part of the cowling and putting a thing piece of foam in there and then replacing the cowling.

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Edited 28 October, 201411 yr by Bri63

I got something like this from my Octavia. It sounded like a relay ticking rather than a squeak or rattle. It would tick rapidly 5 or 6 times and then not happen again. I was thinking it might be something to do with the ventilation system but never tracked it down as it wasn't persistent and didn't show any other symptoms.