Took my wife to town and said that I could pass by the Skoda dealer to ask them about the sound described here:

http://www.briskoda.net/forums/topic/388507-yeti-making-strange-noise/

 

The sound appeared 4 days after I bought the car, new, and it was like a cricket sound inside the dash. Almost 2 weeks later and 700 km more the sound became more and more louder and it was changing frequency and pitch depending on the engine charge. Since I plan to leave in vacation across Europe with the car I said to sort this out now. They spent an hour trying to diagnose it and told me they couldn't figure it out. They have to wait until Monday for the chief technician. 

 

Totally unexpected for a brand new car. Add to this other minor annoyances like hatch door closing properly only after 2-3 retries, passenger seat already blocked once in one position and had to tell my wife not too fiddle too much with it and one of the most uncomfortable ride position I have ever experienced; and every other year we go visit some island for a week and there I rent the cheapest car which is usually the most used, beaten, 200k+ kms, smallest car and drive it for a week without issues; or I spend 3 hours in a low cost air company plastic seat and can walk out of the airplane just fine. 1 hour of driving in this car and my back is screaming, only way to reduce the agony is to keep moving on the seat every 5 minutes. For a 30k euros car this was not the experience I was hoping for. It just feels cheap and fragile, less reliable than my previous 10k Hyundai and probably should have stuck with the Asian manufacturers. I am only happy I didn't choose the DSG box, not because I wouldn't like it but taking into account the complexity and importance of the system, who knows how long that would have lasted. 

 

  

Most say how comfortable the seats and driving position is and after 300 - 400 mile trips in mine I feel fine, very comfortable.
Your comments about the DSG that you don't even have make it sound like you are looking for something to complain about.

Suggest you try switching on/off your air con. when this noise is present. If it disappears it could be the compressor unit at fault. 

You are right, I may have been hard and too quick with a verdict. I am just feeling dissapointed, I was hoping something was just loose or not properly in place, find it and fix it. I was really happy with the engine and the technical part of the car. But then the mechanic comes and says he doesn't recommend driving the car anymore because  he doesn't know what's wrong with the engine and I had just driven it to them on the highway at high speeds. He said that the noise is there all time, just that under load and with a hot engine it's louder. But I'll wait to fix it and until after the holiday when I can drive it for long periods of time before I make other assumptions on the car quality.  

 

LE: @brianja. This is what I also suggested it to the mechanic when I showed him that turning the AC on cuts the noise. He said that in the engine bay the noise is still there, just only inside it fades because of the extra blowing sound of the AC. Well, I could clearly hear the noise in the engine bay w/o AC but not with the AC on. I know I'm a little deaf of one ear so I guess his hearing was better than mine. It was a little funny, usually it's the other way around: I go to the mechanic reporting a strange rattle or noise and he doesn't hear anything abnormal. I want to leave the car for further investigation they say it's perfectly fine. Today they were the ones hearing strange noises from the engine and convinced me I shouldn't take the car back 

Edited 30 July, 20169 yr by Alexul

Is the sound more like a low whistle note, that seems to be change frequency at intervals, or depend on engine speed.

If so had a very similar problem in a roomster, one of the mechanics diagnosed problem as a servo controlling the flaps that switch the ventilation air from hot / cold. If it doesn't operate fully some air gets past and makes poor musical notes. Ours was more noticeable when accelerating as seemed to boost the airflow.

All changed under warranty, but had to order in parts and from memory it took over a day to do, and whole system had to be regassed afterwards as they had to replace the valve in the system

Edited 30 July, 20169 yr by SurreyJohn

sounds a bit off note to me but hey who knows!

It's really identical to the one from this user:

http://www.briskoda.net/forums/topic/363110-12-tsi-110-wierd-noise/?p=4311156

First video here:

https://onedrive.live.com/?authkey=%21AExCqcefEWuA9wI&cid=F2305B2A1615CDA5&id=F2305B2A1615CDA5%212494&parId=F2305B2A1615CDA5%212412&o=OneUp

 

Initially it was like that, independent of engine rev or load. But in the last few days, when in neutral it changes to a continuous sound and goes to back to this repeating note once you get over 1000-1300 revs. This change made me a little worried, it means that the problem is evolving in one way or another so I better get it checked. My 2 cents opinion, with very little knowledge of how engines work and purely based on observation, the engine is fine. When I opened the hood the engine block is in the center emitting a constant sound. Just like in the video, the alien signal comes from the left and somewhere towards the dashboard. Obviously it is related to the engine speed and power, just like 1000 other parts of the car. On the other hand what are the chances of an AC compressor failing after just 4 days in which I used the AC only once, the day before this thing started. 

 

I actually forgot I recorded it also:

 

The mic was a few cm away from the central console. You can compare the level of the sound with the background noise from the engine which you can hardly hear. Not a pleasant way to drive during the night when the others in the car want to sleep. 

Edited 30 July, 20169 yr by Alexul

Who says there no miracles? After 10 days of having this noise coming out of the dashboard any time of day, just today when they wanted to fix it, it's no longer there. According to the mechanic, with whom I just finished talking on the phone the car is silent like a fish. I think the car has its own personality and got scared of all the bad guys in the garage and said to play nice. Until I'll pick it up. 

Edited 1 August, 20169 yr by Alexul

The sound clip above sounds like it could be pipes vibrating against the bulkhead, a known fault.
It's picking up a reverberation from somewhere.

The sound clip above sounds like it could be pipes vibrating against the bulkhead, a known fault.

It's picking up a reverberation from somewhere.

 Thanks for the answer. If it's a known fault are there any other reports of this on this forum or somewhere else? And can it cause the car to break on a trip?

If it is that no immediate problem but it could cause wear over a period of time.
Don't know where I became aware of it but it's probably here somewhere.

It may be This Thread

The conditions are similar but I wouldn't say the noise is metallic. They could be vibrations but it's strange it's not really continuous. To my ear sounds like a pump pushing every second.

I will see tomorrow if it's really gone. I decided to go to them at noon, it's warmer outside and the engine shouldn't take more than 5 minutes to warm up. 

 

Now I got worried about something else. While on the bus from work I met a former colleague (the advantages of not having a car). I told him about my issue with the car and he also told me about the problem he had with his VW Golf, which he was very happy with: while on the highway, overtaking a truck suddenly no more power to the engine and loosing speed fast. He got out ok of this, which for me would be very scary and found out an injector blew up (the 3rd I think he said). He had 91.000 km on board, warranty expired at 90.000. Normally I would say a terrible bad luck. But I remembered someone else from work 5-6 years ago which on VW Passat blew up 1 injector and several weeks later a second one. In the end they agreed to replace all of them but he sold the car as soon as possible. I can understand why.

 

So does anyone else know about any issues with VW fuel injectors and if they are also applicable to Skoda cars?  

Edited 1 August, 20169 yr by Alexul

The conditions are similar but I wouldn't say the noise is metallic. They could be vibrations but it's strange it's not really continuous. To my ear sounds like a pump pushing every second.

I will see tomorrow if it's really gone. I decided to go to them at noon, it's warmer outside and the engine shouldn't take more than 5 minutes to warm up. 

 

Now I got worried about something else. While on the bus from work I met a former colleague (the advantages of not having a car). I told him about my issue with the car and he also told me about the problem he had with his VW Golf, which he was very happy with: while on the highway, overtaking a truck suddenly no more power to the engine and loosing speed fast. He got out ok of this, which for me would be very scary and found out an injector blew up (the 3rd I think he said). He had 91.000 km on board, warranty expired at 90.000. Normally I would say a terrible bad luck. But I remembered someone else from work 5-6 years ago which on VW Passat blew up 1 injector and several weeks later a second one. In the end they agreed to replace all of them but he sold the car as soon as possible. I can understand why.

 

So does anyone else know about any issues with VW fuel injectors and if they are also applicable to Skoda cars?

The VWWatercooled forum has a,years,reading on the PD engined Siemens injector failures which cost a packet, but of course not applicable to CR engines apparently.

On complaints, you have to be boringly specific about specs to make sense of complaints and their relevance to yours..........and risk being told YOU have a problem )))

Picked my car today. My luck to arrive 5 minutes after a  delivery truck full of Skodas so I had to wait 1/2 hour for the guy to unload and park the cars. 

Also the parking was full of police cars. Never noticed but seems the Skoda Octavia is one of the official police car in Luxembourg. 

Anyway, when I said my car has its own personality I was joking. Now I don't know what to believe. The dealer let the car warm up then we both stood there in silence. No strange noise. I couldn't believe. I asked to drive around the parking. Just on the last turn the brr brr started but much much softer than Saturday. He jumped out of the car and went searching for the mechanic. Just as he exited the car, the noise faded. I was desperate. Tried revving the engine, playing with temperature controls, by the time the mechanic came noise was gone. So we drove again, all 3 in the car, like 5 minutes. Nothing. The dealer believed me that I wasn't crazy, being also there on Saturday and I also understood that it's almost impossible to fix something that comes and goes. I prefer not so start dissembling parts of the car and the end up with other noises.

I drove off, noise came back right after exiting the garage parking; it is much lower you really have to search for it so I just ignored it. If something will break at least it will be easy to diagnose. But I hope it won't. 

 

I strongly believe it's related to exterior conditions: temperature, humidity and how the temperature control reacts. Maybe a seal, a valve, a vent, something gets too dry or too wet. Turning AC on fixes this. Today are 15 degrees and raining, Saturday were 25-26 and sunny bright sky.