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weird buzzing alarm style noise from engine

Posted: Sat Nov 01, 2008 8:59 pm
by anothergeek
Greetings :)
Long time lurker, first post, please be gentle :)

I've been piling from the search options on here trying to see if someone else has had this but with no luck.

Our 6N polo has recently developed a strange alarm / buzzing style noise coming from the engine which we're stumped as to what could be causing it.

When it started happening a couple of weeks ago, it would only happen if, in neutral from a cold start, you gave it some throttle up until about the 2-3k mark.

Letting go of the throttle would not stop the noise, neither would clutching/decluthing, or putting her into gear.

The only way to stop the noise would be to turn the engine off. Most of the time, turning the engine back on the noise would not come back. Driving along normally in a 30mph zone would be fine. Coming to a standstill then moving off again can bring the noise back.

In the past few days, the noise now happens a lot more frequently, both when starting up and driving along. Today, the noise started when we turned the ignition, but the noise only came on intermittently at idle

Has anyone come across this before, and got any clues as to what it may be?

Clutch was changed a few weeks ago. Car has been in for a service with oil and filter changes. Water pump and timing belt changed last year at 45k.
Car has about 60k on the clock.

I've uploaded a really badly shot video of the noise here:

http://www.anothergeek.com/misc/polo_weirdnoise.avi

The noise doesn't appear to be coming from around the centre of the bonnet area, it's not the belts on the offside.

Thanks in advance for any clues you might be able to provide :)

Posted: Mon Nov 17, 2008 4:29 pm
by anothergeek
Bloke down the garage had a look at it, immediately recognised the sound.

It's the distributor bearing, which means a whole new dist in the near future. Apparently it's a common thing with veedubs, particularly with Golfs?

Posted: Mon Nov 17, 2008 6:45 pm
by alexperkins
Id say it sounds more like a belt slipping to be fair

Re: weird buzzing alarm style noise from engine

Posted: Tue Jul 14, 2020 11:51 am
by cannonfodder4j
I just switched out my timing belt, water pump, Tensioner and valve cover gaskets. I checked and double checked the timing market about 7 times over.

I fired her up and I’m getting that buzzing noise from the engine (sounds like an alarm) and it dies after about 20-30 seconds.

Checked under the hood and found my crank case breather completely shot as well as some oil leaking from the valve cover. (I went with a cheap replacement, gonna try something higher quality)

Is this buzzing timing related? Oil pressure related?

Re: weird buzzing alarm style noise from engine

Posted: Tue Jul 14, 2020 11:52 am
by cannonfodder4j
Timing marks*

Re: weird buzzing alarm style noise from engine

Posted: Tue Jul 14, 2020 11:58 am
by anothergeek
Our original issue 12 years ago was fixed when the distributor cap was replaced.

Re: weird buzzing alarm style noise from engine

Posted: Tue Jul 14, 2020 12:08 pm
by cannonfodder4j
Wow that’s such a relief. I’ll give that a shot


Nothing to do with timing?

Re: weird buzzing alarm style noise from engine

Posted: Tue Jul 14, 2020 12:26 pm
by anothergeek
Nope, we didn't touch the timing belt on the car. The noise just started by itself one day and was fixed with the replacement distributor cap.