Hi,

I have a 65 plate Octavia MK III, purchase second-hand around august last year from a franchised dealer. It still has around 6 months on the manufacturer's warranty.

 

A couple of months ago, i noticed a vibrating/whirring noise at around 60 MPH while travelling away for the weekend. The noise was significant enough for me to pull over and check the tyres/wheels for any obvious issues. The sound was like being near a car with a loud exhaust pipe - that's what we thought is was at first, but then it became obvious that it was something on our car.

 

The noise manifests istself at around 40 MPH and more obviously at around 60 MPH. It sounds like it is coming from the front somewhere.

 

I took it in to the local Skoda dealer to take a look and left it for the day, thinking the noise was pretty obvious and they would be able to replicate it given my instructions. On returning at the end of the day (without having heard from them all day), they said they hadn't found anything. They said the only noise they heard was on a road test was road noise and wind noise.

 

They said the tyre wear was uneven on the front tyres, the tyre pressures were uneven and that there were winter tyres on the back, which would contribute to road noise.  They said that there is nothing mechanically wrong with the vehicle and they say they inspected the bearings. They hadn't recorded the tyres pressures - just inflated/deflated them (to the wrong pressures according to the manual), the front tyres have 0.5mm difference in wear between left and right and are evenly worn across the tyre surfaces (according to their own measurements in their report). The rear tyres are not winter tyres - they are Michelin CrossClimate+ tyres that are only three or four months old, and they are not particularly noisy according to ratings and reviews. The tyres have also been in that configuration (old Nexens that came with the car when i bought it, rotated from the back to the front, new crossclimate+ at the back) for a couple of months with no noise issues.

 

Obviously, the tyre pressure adjustment made no difference to the noise as i drove it home.

 

They said that I can drop in and wait for technician if one is available - i can't make an appointment for some reason - and take them for a ride-along to point out the noise.

 

We've just got back from a trip away, during which the noise is definitely louder than it was.

 

Phew... long description of where I stand at the moment, but i wanted to make sure i didn't miss anything.

 

I was hoping that someone might be able to advise me on:

 

1. Potential causes for such a noise
2. How to validate any of those myself through inspection or basic tests, if at possible
3. How to classify such a noise and communicate effectively with the service staff, who clearly think i am some kind of idiot who can't recognise normal road noise
4. Otber suggestions about next steps

 

I have considered replacing the front tyres with CrossClimate+, same as the rears, and getting alignment/tracking checked - the current front tyres don't grip very well in my view anyway, but this will cost me a fair bit and the current tyres have 4.5mm left on them, so it's a bit of a waste (I guess i could keep them in the shed and put them back on in the future). I wondered if this might rule anything out before going back to the dealer service team and being treated like an idiot again.

 

I think this is a great car, but if i test drove this today and heard this noise, I would think "there's definitely something up with this car" and would walk away if they told me it was normal.

 

Thanks for reading my essay and for any assitance you can offer,

 

Ashley

Possibly...

1 - Wheel bearing

2 - Jack up car, turn wheels by hand and listen for rough noise difference between them to identify the one with the potential wheel bearing problem

3 - Tell the dealer it sounds like a worn wheel bearing, the symptoms you described already suggest it could be the cause

4 - Other things to test, adjust include wheel alignment and tyre wear.

 

Wheel bearings seem to be made of soft cheese, reported by others on the forum.

 

Hope this helps.

 

Good luck.

1 hour ago, randompunter said:

They said the tyre wear was uneven on the front tyres,

 

If the front tyres are worn on the inside edge with the leading edge of each tread block higher than the trailing edge then:-

This can lead to an increase tyre noise, the faster you go the noisier it gets?

This wear pattern is often the case with rear tyres. Your Nexens were on the back?

 

Try swapping the front tyres from side to side but only if they are asymmetrical.

You can't do this with the Michelin Cross Climate+ tyres because they are directional.

You could also try swapping the tyres from front to back and see if the noise moves as well.

 

Thanks AG Falco

Hi all,

 

I change the front tyres anyway as they were poor and i read a recomendation to go for the cross-climates across all four wheels. I also got them to check the wear pattern and alignment, which were obviously fine, and listen to the bearings while hey had it jacked up.

 

I finally took it back to Skoda today and took one of their technicians out for a ride-along. At first the noise didn't happen, despite being worse recently, but once on the A34 is came back as reliably as ever and the chap said pretty quickly that it sounded like the front left wheel bearing.

 

They replaced the bearing, which they described as buckled, under the warranty and the noise has gone.

 

Win!

 

Thanks for your assistance.

 

Only downside is that the alarm for the front-right tyre pressure went off on the way home - another thing to deal with!

 

Ashley

Glad you are sorted. The wheel bearings seem to be made from cheese 

17 hours ago, randompunter said:

Only downside is that the alarm for the front-right tyre pressure went off on the way home - another thing to deal with!

 

I guess this is because the dealer didnt reset the TPMS after the work & changing the Wheel bearing has now affected the overall behaviour of your front wheels as they now rotate evenly.

Your left Wheel now spins faster without the drag of the bearing which would equate to a higher pressure in a normal system (which probably wouldnt trigger an errror.).

Your opposite Wheel used to spin faster than the other but its now reduced as the loading is even on both wheels which would indicate a drop in pressure.

 

I would check the pressure on all of the tyres & reset the system & see if it comes back.

Also had a front wheel bearing changed at 25k miles. 

 

 

I checked the tyres and they were all fine as suspected - I reset the TPMS and it hasn't gone off again.

 

Will post all my problems on here before going to a garage ever again!

 

Thanks for the help,

 

Ashley

Edited 9 June, 20188 yr by randompunter
typo

Or read the manual