The pulsating noise is not annoying or loud, it is very feeble, however, it masks the ‘turbo whoosh’.
BHPian Sumesh_Jazz recently shared this with other enthusiasts.
Dear BHP’ians,
I own a 1.8 TSI Octavia which I bought in 2019. It has been a totally niggle free ownership experience so far and the car has always performed extremely well. The car has so far covered nearly 28,000 km. We had many memorable long trips with Octavia. A week before we were out on the highway and after completing an overtaking manoeuvre the car came across a deep pothole which I could not avoid. It was a strong jolt, but the bottom of the car did not scrape. The car continued to run smoothly after that. However, after nearly 1 hour I observed that whenever I released the accelerator the dashboard and the front area of the car started vibrating. This was very unusual and I never had such an experience earlier. There was no vibration with the accelerator pressed, the vibrations started every time the vehicle slowed down on releasing the accelerator. I stopped the vehicle and applied the accelerator in ‘P’ mode. I found that after releasing the accelerator the exhaust not was felt very abnormal as the rpm levels came down to idling values. I immediately contacted the Skoda workshop and they said they will examine it. I headed towards the workshop, but by the time I reached it was almost closing time and I decided to show the vehicle the next day. However, surprisingly the vibrations on releasing the accelerator disappeared the next day morning when I checked the car. The exhaust note was also restored to normal. Still, I have taken the car to the Skoda workshop. They have taken a trial run and found nothing abnormal. They also lifted the car, opened the engine protector covering at the bottom and made sure that the engine mounting is properly tightened.
I have returned from the workshop since everything appeared normal. However, subsequently, I noticed something. I found that the ‘turbo whoosh’ from the TSI engine which was prominent earlier is now barely audible to me. Before that ‘pothole’ incident, the car always produced that sweet turbo whoosh whenever the throttle input was given and it was fairly continuous and consistent. I really enjoyed the ‘turbo whoosh’ especially when the ambient noise was minimal (low traffic, deserted highways, night times). The ‘turbo whoosh’ sounded like poetry to me and was one of the major reasons making the drives with the car very special and gratifying.
I have noticed that the ‘turbo whoosh’ is still there, but it is masked by a pulsating sound from the car, the pulsating sound is produced at a lower frequency at low speeds and its frequency increases when the speed builds up. It appeared to me that the pulsating noise is actually creating a background noise which is probably masking the ‘turbo whoosh’. Nothing abnormal is heard from the engine on accelerating in ‘P’ mode. The pulsating noise is heard only when on the move. Now I doubt whether something has gone wrong with the balancing or alignment of the wheels with the impact from the pothole.
The car has no issues with performance and it gives that extremely rapid acceleration any moment I need. The pulsating noise is not annoying or loud, it is very feeble, however, it masks the ‘turbo whoosh’. I am really upset with the ‘turbo whoosh’ kind of vanishing from my drives. I feel really desperate to have the engine note restored back to normal.
Would going for a wheel balancing and alignment can help? Or could this be related to something else? Requesting fellow BHP’ians for your valuable feedback/advice on this.
Keyword: Weird noise from my Octavia 1.8 TSI after running over a pothole