Help please, unacceptable cabin noise

[mattevs]

Hi guys,

I was recommended this site for advice on my issue and thought I’d give it a go as I’m at my wits end. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Ok I have a Polo R Line 2019 that I purchased about 3 months ago and ever since I had it I have had a few issues. First one was an annoying rattle in the cabin that I traced to the handbrake lever button and that was replaced under warranty by VW. The main issue I have with the car is outside noise coming from the driver door upper right, by the corner of the window. It is hardly noticeable in dry weather apart from a little whining noise at higher speeds but when it is wet outside it is terrible for some reason. The best way I can describe the noise is like if I had the door open while driving and the tyre noise on the wet road and going through puddles is really loud from that location only that I described earlier. I have taken the car back to VW and described it to them but they said they could not find an issue after checking the door seals. But I don’t think they even test drive it like I said for them to do. Any advice would be very appreciated as it is driving me mad

[SRGTD]

Bear in mind that the source of unwanted noise in cars can be very deceptive, and may not originate from where you think they might. There’ve been a number of people on golfgtiforum.co.uk who’ve had what they thought was a vibration / rattle from the centre console when it was actually the vanity mirror mounted behind the driver’s sun visor that was vibrating against the visor.

You’ve said the noise is from the upper right of the driver’s door. Is this when viewed from inside or outside the car? If inside from the driver’s seat, it’ll be where the rear top corner of the door meets the B pillar just below the roof, and if it’s when viewed from outside the car it’ll be where the front top corner of the door is adjacent to where the A pillar meets the front corner of the roof. Are any of the door / window seals either damaged or distorted in the area where the noise seems to be entering the car’s cabin or is the driver’s door incorrectly fitted / misaligned? Does the window in driver’s door close completely when in the raised position? It would only take a very small gap between the window and door frame or the door and door seals for unwanted wind noise to be heard in the cabin, and generally, wind / exterior noises entering the cabin do tend to sound worse in wet conditions; tyres rotating on the wet road surface and road spray will amplify the effect.

Your car should have vertical black plastic filler strips between the rear edge of the front wings and the lower section of the A pillar near to where the front door hinges are fixed to the car, visible when the front doors are open. Check that these haven’t been removed (there’s no reason why they should have been) and that they create an effective barrier to stop road and tyre noise being transmitted up around the door from under the front wheel arch. The fact that you’ve said the noise sounds like tyre noise on a wet road would lead me to suspect noise is being transmitted into the cabin from under the front driver’s side wheel arch rather than around the window in the driver’s door, and a poorly fitting plastic filler strip could be the cause.

This one’s a bit of a stab in the dark; the diagram below shows the location of the insulation fitted to the AW model Polo and from the diagram it doesn’t look as if there are any specific sound absorption parts fitted in the suspected area of your unwanted noise source. However noise does travel, so if item 31 on the diagram has either become dislodged or has been removed, I’m wondering if it would be possible for unwanted noise to travel up around the base of the A pillar and into your car’s interior? Not sure how likely this would be or how you’d check this out though; as said, a bit of a stab in the dark.

Link to parts listing on the diagram; https://www.lllparts.co.uk/product/volk ... /2g4868759

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If you have named drivers on your insurance policy, it might also be worth getting one of those named drivers to drive your car to give a second opinion.

Good luck - I hope you find the source / cause and it’s easily sorted.

[mattevs]

Morning,

I appreciate the advice. I will check all the things you have mentioned when this bloody rain stops ha.

Just a few answers to your reply, the noise is from when your sitting in the drivers and right at ear level say coming from the top right hand side where the window going in to the door frame.hope that makes sense, when they were looking at it in VW I asked the technician to check the door alignment and he stated they already have and it was ok. They seemed puzzled as to where the noise was coming from and maybe thought I was a bit crazy lol. But like I told them they need to drive the car when it’s wet outside as that is when the noise is really bad I.e water spray sound is very noticeable then. They said say checked everything that it could be and all was ok and they can’t find any issues. But I know there is a problem there somewhere as when my partner drove the car for me to sit in the passenger seat to compare noise level, the passenger side has no noise what so ever. I have visually compared both side to see if anything is different or missing but all looks the same. I will have another look later and check the things you suggested and see if I find anything.I will let you guys know how I get on.

[mattevs]

Also just in case any one else has a rattle problem in the cab that they can’t pin point, my issue was the handbrake lever button. They replaced it under warranty and the noise was gone. The VW technician also told me they have had quite a few polos in with the button issue on the handbrake. Worth checking the handbrake button if you get the dreaded rattle in the cabin.

[SRGTD]

Also just in case any one else has a rattle problem in the cab that they can’t pin point, my issue was the handbrake lever button. They replaced it under warranty and the noise was gone. The VW technician also told me they have had quite a few polos in with the button issue on the handbrake. Worth checking the handbrake button if you get the dreaded rattle in the cabin.

Yes, the handbrake button is a known source of noise on some earlier AW models of the Polo - it’s been discussed on the forum in the past.

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I have the buzzy rattley type noise coming from what i suspect is the passanger side behind the tweeter grill.

It seems to be worse depending on exhaust resonance - i have already disconnected and removed the soundaktor module…

Bit of a pain, but a few notches up on the stereo and it’s not so noticable until certain parts of some songs seem to make it audible again.

Who knows.

[mattevs]

Ok I went out and checked all the things mentioned and could Not find anything wrong or missing. Anyway on the way back from a test drive out of sheer frustration I pushed the seal on the inside by the window out of its grove and would you believe it the noise completely stopped, so anyway I put the seal back on the correct way on the grove and back came the noise ha so done it one more time and and noise goes again so it has to be that seal needs replacing even tho it looks fine, Manet a bit loose like not seating probably anymore on the grove. Only problem is I have no idea what part number this seal would be.

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[SRGTD]

Ok I went out and checked all the things mentioned and could Not find anything wrong or missing. Anyway on the way back from a test drive out of sheer frustration I pushed the seal on the inside by the window out of its grove and would you believe it the noise completely stopped, so anyway I put the seal back on the correct way on the grove and back came the noise ha so done it one more time and and noise goes again so it has to be that seal needs replacing even tho it looks fine, Manet a bit loose like not seating probably anymore on the grove. Only problem is I have no idea what part number this seal would be.

Good that you’ve found the cause of the problem. If you can’t find the part number from various Google searches, then a VW dealership parts department should be able to tell you what it is.