Octavia road noise - is really that bad ??

[KevC_Derby]

My Mk3 FL 230 on 18s running on OEM Bridgestone rubber is fine, had worse, had much the same but not bad. Drive a couple of hire cars per week and Passat, BMW 320, Hyundai i40 all worse, Superb was the only car noticeably quieter. Qashqai and Juke meh.

[Robbijay]

Our vRS seems to be completely silent vs my other car. Needs an exhaust and intake so you can hear when the engine is running!

[tompka]

I've had my Mk3 FL Octy vRS since October. Done 30k miles. Road noise on Motorways is noticeable but not over powering. Round town/country lane driving you can't hear anything really. 

 

On motorways I tend to just turn the music up a bit more to drown out the noise.

 

In comparison to a 17 plate 3series I often drive its loud. But then in comparison to a 65 plate Mondeo I had before it, its nothing.

[HotVRs]

I've had 3 Octavia's, and never found noise much of an issue. Then again it  probably depends what you are comparing it to, mine replaced a Fabia vRS which was nosier, and our other car (2007 Toyota Corolla Verso - (1 fault in 11 years)) is much noisier than the Octavia. Always found isolation of engine vibration through the steering column more of an issue than noise.

[181ce]

Extremely sensitive to tyre choice I'd say,

Bridgestones a on mine

Hankooks when they're gone methinks

I'd echo the sentiments re broken surfaces

But the rattly calipers annoy me much more on there surfaces

[k3vkr]

Mines is on 19” extremes and Pirelli rubber. On the motorway the noise is bad, urban driving not as much but it’s a real bug bear for me tbh

[norsko]

I dont have any booming in my hatch, but the road noise is more than I like. I have tested 3 set of tires, Bridgestone, Tyfoon and Goodyear (all 18"), and there was no difference to my ears.

But now I finally found a solution, and I have never been more happy of my Skoda, the ride, the power, the gearbox, the fuel consumption,  and the quietness!

 

What I have done?

 

Bought and old Jeep Wrangler and used it for a couple of months.

Now the Skoda sound, feels and drives like a new Bentley (or Rolls maybe) :-)

[vRSAnt]

I dunno what people are complaining about, modern day first world problems eh.

I practicality went deaf y/day with MG with the roof down and stainless sports exhaust for instance, but it was joy

 

In fact so much that one the roof was up you tend to notices things like rattles in that ......

( although I put that in part due to earlier when I saw to the silly cow I said "have you shut your door properly" and it turned out after some time we find out she didn't......lol

On the Octy - half decent tyres - RS3 that are veering more on softs, in a vRS with a genuine rubber boot matt seems to kill some of the rumbling noise I have heard.

 

[JohnnyType2]

i think we have to compare to an equivalent car and other marques of the same age etc. for instance i have a Carens similar wheel size and tyre profile yet the noise is almost negligable compared to the Octavia. It becomes very frustrating if your doing high miles and motoway driving when you know if they spent a tiny bit more on sound proofing it would be so much better on the ears

[chuno]

I have a 245 on xtremes and Pirellli rubber.

 

I also have a VX220.

 

At low speeds i find the tyres almost silent, but between 65mph-75mph they become very noisy. Almost on a par with the VX220 which is also very noisy.

 

I think it must just be the tyre. I certainly won't be going for Pirelli again when its time to change!

[ChoonDoode]

I've never considered my diesel vrs to be noisy. Going down to a few track days with the trailer on back and the only loud noise you could hear would be the occasional rattle from the trailer if there was a bad bump on the motorway.

 

Yes, when going out on the country roads for a blast, you can clearly hear the throaty diesel gruff, but u don't feel you can hear anymore road or wind noise than you normally do.

 

If you want a noisy and uncomfortable journey, take a tranny van on a lengthy motorway trip. You're either deafened by the turbulence or by the radio trying to cover the turbulence. 

[AlexBlue]

Having come from lesser cars, I think my '18 1.5 petrol estate to be very quiet, on original hankooks. Any noise that can be heard is from the front/engine, with nothing from the rear (even when I'm driving round with the back seats down). I do have the false floor, and recently bought the oem rubber boot mat which may help with any rear noise? I can't imagine that different specced cars have different levels of soundproofing? Anyways, I'm happy with it

[logiclee]

I'm ok with the wind and tyre noise at speed. (Elegance with 225/45x17's)

 

What I don't like is the amount of noise transmitted into the cabin on poor road surfaces or when hitting ridges or potholes. This is from front and rear as though the suspension isn't isolated enough.

The Mk2 is much better in this respect.

 

Lee

[ScoutCJB]

My Oct 3 Scout is possibly slightly quieter than my Oct 2 Scout - Both had been running Continental Winter Contact TS 860.

When I changed to my summers (Uniroyal Rainsport 3's) I did notice more road noise but on only some surfaces - one particular being a concrete slab section of motorway

[JD52]

I'm thinking of getting the car professionally fitted with a soundproofing kit and I have been quoted £845 for the boot, doors and floor kit.

 

Anybody tried this and is the quote a sensible figure?

 

[SnailUK]

Not sure i'd spend near a grand sound proofing the car, I can't imagine you'll make that much of a difference.

 

That said, my estate with spare wheel, is quite a bit louder than my saloon without the spare wheel. I wonder how much difference estate/saloon, and spare/no spare makes.

 

[ScoutCJB]

3 hours ago, JD52 said:

I'm thinking of getting the car professionally fitted with a soundproofing kit and I have been quoted £845 for the boot, doors and floor kit.

 

Anybody tried this and is the quote a sensible figure?

 

 

When i bought my first Scout it was really noisy.  I was in process of sourcing some dynamat for the boot and tidying the car up and opted for 4 Winter Continental tyres.  Binned the Falken Eurowinters that were on it and fitted the Contis and the difference was night and day, so much so I never dynamatted the boot.

 

You dont have to use Dynamat - use and reasonable sound proofing.  I would start with Boot only and see how you get on - its easily achievable yourself for about £70 (ball park)

[JD52]

4 minutes ago, ScoutCJB said:

 

When i bought my first Scout it was really noisy.  I was in process of sourcing some dynamat for the boot and tidying the car up and opted for 4 Winter Continental tyres.  Binned the Falken Eurowinters that were on it and fitted the Contis and the difference was night and day, so much so I never dynamatted the boot.

 

You dont have to use Dynamat - use and reasonable sound proofing.  I would start with Boot only and see how you get on - its easily achievable yourself for about £70 (ball park)

 

@ScoutCJB Thanks for this.

 

I am running Goodyear Eagle Assymetric which are great on some surfaces and rubbish on other.

 

The advantage of using a fitting company was that I could drop the car of one morning and get it back in the evening with the boot. doors and floor all sorted. But, it's a lot of money for an experiment.

 

 

[KevC_Derby]

Before doing anything you really need to identify the dominant source of the noise. Is it Acoustic or Vibratory generated? 

Are you wanting to eliminate the source of the noise, mask it or mute it.

Make sure you know what you want because you could spend £900 on fitting insulation and it not doing exactly what you wanted to achieve.

[JD52]

It is road noise/tyre roar that's the issue.

 

Travelling on European motorways or some sections of UK motorway, then the noise disappears completely. On other roads it can get intrusive.

 

As there is no sound insulation in the car, then adding insulation can only reduce the noise levels in the car??

 

[181ce]

Bottom line is they are extremely sensitive to tyre choice,mines on Bridgestones out of the factory,two are now near bald thank c#r1st I'll be replacing with Hankooks can't wait for the other two to die.

[SoupDragon]

My experience is very specific. Octy MK111 Hatchback SE with 1.5 ACT engine, There was a road that I had to use frequently. The surface was worn and rough, but has since been resurfaced. This was the only place where I would always suffer the noise. The whole cabin would resonate with a deep booming note. It was strong enough to feel the air vibrating in my ears, similar to the effect of opening a window wide at speed, but not as powerful. The noise in the cabin would drown out conversation and the radio. My theory is this...  If you hit a correctly inflated tyre with say a spanner, it will ring with a particular frequency. If the road surface and your speed matches that frequency, all four tyres will start to resonate at that frequency. This ringing will enter the cabin via the suspension. If the cabin has a dimension that matches the wavelength of that frequency, it will set up a standing wave and this will reinforce the volume of the intruding noise. Somewhere else on this forum, someone has noted that the resonate frequency of the tyres is 220 Hz and I have calculated that the wavelength of 220 Hz is about 5 feet at normal conditions. Any space of 5 feet between reflecting surfaces in the cabin is very likely to set up this standing wave. 

 

[JohnnyType2]

1 hour ago, SoupDragon said:

My experience is very specific. Octy MK111 Hatchback SE with 1.5 ACT engine, There was a road that I had to use frequently. The surface was worn and rough, but has since been resurfaced. This was the only place where I would always suffer the noise. The whole cabin would resonate with a deep booming note. It was strong enough to feel the air vibrating in my ears, similar to the effect of opening a window wide at speed, but not as powerful. The noise in the cabin would drown out conversation and the radio. My theory is this...  If you hit a correctly inflated tyre with say a spanner, it will ring with a particular frequency. If the road surface and your speed matches that frequency, all four tyres will start to resonate at that frequency. This ringing will enter the cabin via the suspension. If the cabin has a dimension that matches the wavelength of that frequency, it will set up a standing wave and this will reinforce the volume of the intruding noise. Somewhere else on this forum, someone has noted that the resonate frequency of the tyres is 220 Hz and I have calculated that the wavelength of 220 Hz is about 5 feet at normal conditions. Any space of 5 feet between reflecting surfaces in the cabin is very likely to set up this standing wave. 

 

 

no seriously that is ^^

i would never have thought of it in term of a standing wave

 

Edited 21 August, 2018 by JohnnyType2

[SWBoy]

1 hour ago, SoupDragon said:

If the cabin has a dimension that matches the wavelength of that frequency, it will set up a standing wave and this will reinforce the volume of the intruding noise.

When I was working on vehicle anti-noise systems back in the late 1980's/early 1990's this is exactly what we found.

 

We were amazed that we could cancel a 100dB+ noise with less than 1W of power from our audio amp - then we get the acoustics experts doing a full noise plot inside a car and you could clearly see the nodes and anti-nodes of the standing wave.

 

So the mechanism is as you describe - a tiny vibration of one panel in the car sets up a powerful standing wave, cancelling that doesn't need cancelling the standing wave but just preventing the resonance that causes the standing wave by moving the loudspeaker cone a tiny amount in opposite phase to the original panel vibration.

[Russ77]

I've only ever owned estate cars:

 

Vauxhall Astra '92

Ford Focus '00

Ford Focus '05

Skoda Octavia '14

 

The Octavia is by far the quietest car I've owned in terms of road, wind and engine noise.  Passengers have also commented on how quiet it is too.

 

The only time I've found it noisy is when the rear windows are open and there's a horrible amount of buffeting/air pressure which is actually uncomfortable at relatively low speeds.  Not the end of the World as you can close the windows and turn the aircon on

 

Certainly wouldn't consider spending the best part of £1K to have it deadened as a post above suggests, although I would more thank likely deaden it a little if I was going to "up" the sound system with a sub etc.

 

Incidentally, you can buy deadening material relatively cheaply and there are probably plenty of guides on how to remove various interior panels to fit it