Monday, April 26, 2010

Can't you hear that rattle?

If you're a frequent driver, you'll likely be intimately familiar with how your car sounds on a daily basis. So much so that when a new squeak or rattle becomes audible, you'll notice it and it will annoy you. Most of these noises are fairly innocent - panels rattling or something not fitting quite right because of an extreme temperature change or pothole. My wife always finds it amusing when we're driving along and I'll turn the radio down and say "can you hear that?".
The worst case I ever saw of this was a few years ago. A friend of mine had this problem where his car developed the noise of an aircraft cabin call bell every 30 seconds or so, but only when he was above 70mph. It wasn't as loud as the 'bing' you hear when flying, but it was definitely there. It drove both of us to distraction but apparently me more than him. He ended up selling the car because he could never locate the source of the noise.

2 comments:

Silas Humphreys said...

So much so that when my usual garage tightened down a lot of rattly bits that some cowboy had left loose under the bonnet of my car, I couldn't hear any difference. My wife assures me that it really is quieter.

Meanwhile, I don't know how she can stand the squeaks in her car!

Plimsol Marker said...

Hi,
A few years ago the japanese, probably in response to some home regulation installed very annoying beepers into the computer/speedo to warn motorists who would speed above their domestic 100km limit.
These could not be turned off. Possibly if your friend had a import or had a speedo replacement, this is what he had. It was a common trick to get a screw driver and find the offending mini speaker and through a dash apperature, destroy it or destroy it enough to mute it. Perhaps that was the cause of all that frustration. cheers Vern NewZealand.