The master technician immediately pointed to the Piano Black insert and stated that’s where the squeaks are coming from.
BHPian Game_of_Roads recently shared this with other enthusiasts.
I have had the following two issues related to rattles and squeaks in the car:
- A significant rattle filtering into the cabin from behind the dashboard but not related to plastic or dashboard fit. This occurs when the engine is cold near idling RPM when starting to move/inch forward. Also happens under normal running under load between 2k-2.2k RPM even on smooth roads. Was totally ruining the otherwise wonderful experience of the car.
- Plastic squeaking around the glove box over road imperfections – less annoying than (1) but present 75% of the time.
But as is expected with these kind of annoyances, neither showed up significantly when I went twice to the Skoda Service, Bangalore around 15km from home.
TLDR – both issues are almost fully fixed with help from the service center + DIY.
Fix for issue 1:
Upon my third visit to service center for mentioned rattling, issue didn’t show up clearly. Service center guys were clear that they wouldn’t randomly do something without actually isolating the issue. They got 2 of their “Master Technicians” from the floor to discuss with me and I agreed to leave the car behind and come the next morning to show the issue when the engine was cold.
Turned up the next day, problem showed up. Immediately a senior mechanic was also brought in and within an hour the issue was identified – Two aluminum AC pipes (inlet and return) that were in proximity to some other plastic surfaces resonated with certain frequencies of my 3-cyl 1Ltr engine causing the mentioned rattle. They have done something that has fixed this issue over the last 5 days/250km of my tests, I’m assuming some foam padding to stop the contact of said pipes and the dashboard. Rattling at ~2k hasn’t been noticed even once since fix, heard a very very slight rattle at cold start just once but this was very very small and noticeable only when looking for it.
Fix for issue 2:
The master technician immediately pointed to the Piano Black insert and stated that’s where the squeaks are coming from. Apparently the squeaks were reported a lot worse in the Kushaq. I originally wasn’t convinced, but I did some testing and I’m now convinced the squeaking is in fact coming from the glove box pressing against the glossy black strip that is apparently not of great quality.
I used some furniture scratch protecting foam things (that are typically used under furniture legs) and various points on the underside of the glossy black dashboard insert and can report that the problem is 90% gone [See pic]. It’s not a pretty job in the pics, but it works to stop most of the squeaking. After a few weeks of making sure the issue is solved I intend to do a cleaner job using some better foam material.
Overall I’m happy to see the correct attitude and direction/ course of actions by the service center in this regard, though some amount of persistence and coaxing was required from my side.
For issue#1 I was told if a good number of people report the problem (at least 5-6), Skoda engineering may design some kind of a brace/mount for the AC pipes to stop the rattling. Folks here facing similar issues can report the same, hopefully something may come out of it.
Keyword: Rattling issues in my Skoda Slavia and how I managed to fix them