Low frequency 'boom' in cabin

[davehiggins07]

In answer to Skoda_Doug.....

Mine is booked in next week at dealers & I have an open case number with Skoda uk so will report back on outcome!

Should have been in this week but dealer cancelled as I'm also waiting for the steering wheel maxi dot control button which is on back order from Skoda (another common problem).

I'm threatening Skoda uk to reject the car as in my opinion it's not fit for purpose with this issue & also I've got many other problems.

Simply not acceptable or good enough for a £24k new car!

[Skoda_Doug]

Had to take my bike to get repaired today and had to put down the rear seats and remove the parcel shelf from the car to put the bike in. When driving along the low frequency "boom" noise was not there on any surface! As soon as I got home I put my bike in the garage and went for a run in the car. Still fine without the bike and the seats down. As soon as I put the rear seats back in place the "booming" noise was back. It was even worse when the parcel shelf was back in place. It must be some weird kind of acoustic issue in the cabin with the chassis/suspension. I will pass this information on to Skoda UK and my dealer when I speak to them next week.

[taxpayer]

Had to take my bike to get repaired today and had to put down the rear seats and remove the parcel shelf from the car to put the bike in. When driving along the low frequency "boom" noise was not there on any surface! As soon as I got home I put my bike in the garage and went for a run in the car. Still fine without the bike and the seats down. As soon as I put the rear seats back in place the "booming" noise was back. It was even worse when the parcel shelf was back in place. It must be some weird kind of acoustic issue in the cabin with the chassis/suspension. I will pass this information on to Skoda UK and my dealer when I speak to them next week.

 

I asked previously in this thread if folding down the rear seats would change the sound. I can hear the sound as well in my car. A few months back, I accidentally knocked my hand into the rear seat backrest (the widest one of them) and it vibrated and produced exactly the booming sound everybody is talking about. Due to safety reasons the backrests are very rigid in modern cars and I am guessing this is why it is able to vibrate as it does. I am most certain that the dampers themselves are not producing the noise. I think road bumps excites the rear seats, and who knows maybe the dampers marked EA has a slightly lower viscous damping coefficient and hence absorbs the shocks better. However, I do not find the FQ dampers too hard at all.

 

I have not had time to dig into the issue yet, but Maybe someone can come up with a clever solution that stops the wide rear seat backrest from vibrating. I think this is what is the problem - at least in my car it is...

[Matt Pez]

I wonder if it is something to do with or without the ski hatch behind the arm rest which is not fitted to every spec, have we got any data on whether the noise occurs either with or or without the armrest/ski hatch?

[Skoda_Doug]

I spent a bit of time on Sunday taking the back seats down then up again, opening and closing the ski hatch in the centre armrest and also removing and replacing the parcel shelf. After doing all this the noise seems to be a bit better. Perhaps there was some part of the above not properly in its place. I will monitor things before I go back to the dealers on Thursday.

[DaveBarr]

I asked previously in this thread if folding down the rear seats would change the sound. I can hear the sound as well in my car. A few months back, I accidentally knocked my hand into the rear seat backrest (the widest one of them) and it vibrated and produced exactly the booming sound everybody is talking about. Due to safety reasons the backrests are very rigid in modern cars and I am guessing this is why it is able to vibrate as it does. I am most certain that the dampers themselves are not producing the noise. I think road bumps excites the rear seats, and who knows maybe the dampers marked EA has a slightly lower viscous damping coefficient and hence absorbs the shocks better. However, I do not find the FQ dampers too hard at all.

 

I have not had time to dig into the issue yet, but Maybe someone can come up with a clever solution that stops the wide rear seat backrest from vibrating. I think this is what is the problem - at least in my car it is...

I think you may be on to something, there, taxpayer. I tried striking the centre backrest with my hand and got the same vibration, of a similar frequency to the booming noise. You can also feel the seat vibrating so I think that is where it is coming from, the side panels and floor are not vibrating as far as I can tell. And when I pushed against the middle of the seat back with my hand at the same time as striking the backrest the noise was definitely reduced. So now I wonder if applying some vibration-reducing material (don't know what) directly to the back of the seat may help matters. By the way, I also think the noise was slightly reduced when I had the rear seat folded down.

Skoda UK have been in contact about the problem and have promised that the issue will not be closed until I am satisfied, I have only just read taxpayer's posting but will mention this to Skoda UK when I talk to them on Monday.

[J8mbo]

I've noticed there's a couple of you with vRS' on here.

 

I haven't experienced the same problem yet - but I've only done 266 miles so far.

 

This week I've been going through my suspension codes/ spring paint colours etc on etka. Some of the part numbers aren't coming up apart from the part number ending in ....EA which seems to be the solution to the non-vRS guys.

 

Can you vRS guys see if your rear shocks are as follows:

 

Combi - 5Q0 513 029 FL

 

Hatch - 5Q0 513 029 FK

 

And have a look at the rear stabilizer if you can for a part number on that. My options list (PR codes) lists my vRS as 0BN rear stabilizer 19mm. Yet etka doesn't recognise that and gives only 0BE or 0BD.

 

I'll look at mine tomorrow when I wash it and check against etka.

[SaffronSkoda]

I've been following this post carefully as it described a very similar problem to the low frequency boom I experienced with my new Rapid.  Thanks to Skoda_Doug's comments I tracked it down to the parcel shelf in my car and describe my fix here:

http://www.briskoda.net/forums/topic/303567-low-frequency-boom-in-cabin-fixed/

I know they are different cars/chassis but it could possibly also apply to the Octavia 3.

[Skoda_Doug]

I've been following this post carefully as it described a very similar problem to the low frequency boom I experienced with my new Rapid.  Thanks to Skoda_Doug's comments I tracked it down to the parcel shelf in my car and describe my fix here:

http://www.briskoda.net/forums/topic/303567-low-frequency-boom-in-cabin-fixed/

I know they are different cars/chassis but it could possibly also apply to the Octavia 3.

The important thing is to make sure that the parcel shelf is properly in place on each side. That makes a big difference in my experience.

[stopwn]

Taking the parcel shelf out AND folding rear seats down seems to do the trick. Are Skoda going to do a fix for this? Whilst the DIY workaround may do the trick, the thought of having to do this on a brand new 25k car angers me somewhat...

[J8mbo]

I've noticed there's a couple of you with vRS' on here.

 

I haven't experienced the same problem yet - but I've only done 266 miles so far.

 

This week I've been going through my suspension codes/ spring paint colours etc on etka. Some of the part numbers aren't coming up apart from the part number ending in ....EA which seems to be the solution to the non-vRS guys.

 

Can you vRS guys see if your rear shocks are as follows:

 

Combi - 5Q0 513 029 FL

 

Hatch - 5Q0 513 029 FK

 

And have a look at the rear stabilizer if you can for a part number on that. My options list (PR codes) lists my vRS as 0BN rear stabilizer 19mm. Yet etka doesn't recognise that and gives only 0BE or 0BD.

 

I'll look at mine tomorrow when I wash it and check against etka.

Still no noise from our vRS.

 

Checked rear shocks over the weekend and they aren't the ones listed on etka.

 

My rear shocks are: 5Q0 512 011 HP.

[peterbaarlo]

also in the Netherlands we have te problem with the booming noise with the O3. myself and another skoda forum member tried the adjustments below on our Octavia Hatchbacks, they helped us a lot!

 

first we put the 2 bracement blocks mounted to the car in their highest position, secondly we turned the 2 rubber stoppers 1 to 1,5 turn counterclockwise.

 

by doing this the hatch closes firmly and cannot resonate anymore.

 

it reduced the noise and pressure on the ears a lot!!!

 

looking forward to see your experience in this topic

 

 

 

 

Edited 11 February, 2014 by peterbaarlo

[Skoda_Doug]

also in the Netherlands we have te problem with the booming noise with the O3. myself and another skoda forum member tried the adjustments below on our Octavia Hatchbacks, they helped us a lot!

 

first we put the 2 bracement blocks mounted to the car in their highest position, secondly we turned the 2 rubber stoppers 1 to 1,5 turn counterclockwise.

 

by doing this the hatch closes firmly and cannot resonate anymore.

 

it reduced the noise and pressure on the ears a lot!!!

 

looking forward to see your experience in this topic

 

 

 

 

 Thanks for the detailed information. I will give that a try at the weekend.

[stopwn]

Surely with the amount of DIY going on Skoda should have a fix for this by now...

[Skoda_Doug]

Surely with the amount of DIY going on Skoda should have a fix for this by now...

If the fix suggested by peterbaarlo works then I will be getting back to Skoda UK (I still have an open issue logged with them about this).

[stopwn]

I've just tried it and will see how it goes tomorrow morning!

[stopwn]

Not sure the boot adjustments made much difference...

[Carfincraig]

I picked my octavia vrs tdi hatch up last week driving down the road and was on anti slip part of road and got the feeling my back window had been opened vibrating droning feeling I checked all the ideas on this forum eg seats down parcel shelf ect to no avail I do not have spare wheel fitted so took out boot carpet and foam liner when hitting where tyre would sit I got the droning noise then put other hand over raised part where tyre screw would go and droning stopped got a spare wheel kit fitted it and wow no more droning what a difference hope this is useful info for you guys having same problem I had cheers

[Paden]

Not sure the boot adjustments made much difference...

Hi all

Unfortunately this adjustment didn't work for me either :-(

Bearing this in mind though, I found that if I close the hatchback gently, so that it's on the latch & wont open, but not proerly closed, all booming noise is gone!

Makes a hell of a difference when driving!

Hard to know if the hatchback is actually the cause of the problem, or just a symptom.

Would be interested to know if others find the same thing.

 

Cheers, Paul

[myself24483]

It is the back cover of the trunk. You can reproduce the sound if you touch the cover from the back seats.

Edited 9 March, 2014 by myself24483

[Paden]

It is the back cover of the trunk. You can reproduce the sound if you touch the cover from the back seats.

Do you mean the parcel shelf?

[myself24483]

Yes...the big black one from the top.

Sent from my HTC Desire 500 using Tapatalk

[Paden]

Yes...the big black one from the top.

Sent from my HTC Desire 500 using Tapatalk

If only it was in my case.

I've had the parcel shelf in/out, the rear seats up/down in different combinations without any significant difference.

Thanks for the suggestion.

 

Cheers, Paul

[byclops]

Hi all

Unfortunately this adjustment didn't work for me either :-(

Bearing this in mind though, I found that if I close the hatchback gently, so that it's on the latch & wont open, but not proerly closed, all booming noise is gone!

Makes a hell of a difference when driving!

Hard to know if the hatchback is actually the cause of the problem, or just a symptom.

Would be interested to know if others find the same thing.

 

Cheers, Paul

 

That is a very interesting observation! It could mean that:

 

 - most of the sound is generated by the vibration of the boot lid, and when it is not fully closed, its coupling to the chasis is weaker. This means less vibration is transferred and less sound is created.

 - the sound is amplified by an acoustic resonance. When the boot is not fully closed, the car is no longer hermetically sealed, and the resonance is weakened. If this is the case, keeping one window ajar might work also.

 

It is quite possible that both of these are true.

[frasreid]

Hi Guys.

 

I have a VRS TDI hatchback and I am also experiencing the booming noise that you describe. I have tried the various suggestions offered on the forum to rectify this, but to no avail.

 

However today I had the hatchback open and was sat in the drivers seat, and when I closed the drivers door, I got the same booming noise within the vehicle, Incidentally the parcel shelf was in and rear seats were up.

 

I asked my partner to take a firm grip of the hatchback door and tried it again, but I still got the booming noise.

 

It would be interesting to see if anybody else has noticed this.

 

I noticed that a couple of members have reported the problem to Skoda but I cannot see if there has been any resolution could someone advise if the have had a successfull outcome please and if so what it was.

 

I am in the process of emailing Skoda to advise of the situation, and will update when I receive a reply.

 

Thanks.