Strange Hyundai Car Noise UPDATE With Better Recording

Hi.

I finally managed to acquire a clear recording of that mystery noise that I told you about in a couple threads I had here a little bit ago. The previous recordings, if you remember, were much too muddy to clearly make out the noise and it was too hard to point it out over the internet. But now I managed to get a very clear recording of the sound.

For those who don't know and/or are seeing this for the first time, the car is a Hyundai Accent GS from 2001. The noise is made when the car is moving and also sometimes when it is stopped. When it is stopped, sometimes it happens when shifting gears.

The sound I recorded here was emitted while the car was stopped. I was able to stick the recorder underneath it for maximum clarity. Because it happened when it was stopped, I KNOW this is not a hubcap problem like someone here suggested. We were shifting gears to see if that would try to get it to happen. It seemed like it might have been correlating with the gear-shifting, but I'm not entirely sure. There was a foot on the brake when this was being done. There was also a final click made when the car was shut off, though I didn't get that in the recordings. Even though this sound was recorded while the car was stopped, it is also made when the car is moving, it's just that I can't get a recording during that time now (don't yet have a mike I want to strap under the car when it is running.). I figured getting the noise when idling would be better since it is much clearer as there are far less interfering noises from other things.

Three files are provided here. The first one is an unedited clip with the sounds spaced in the intervals in which they appear. The sound is like sharp metallic clicks. You can hear it at positions 0.8 sec, 4.2 sec, and 16.6 sec. The first time it makes 1 click, the second it makes 2, the third it makes 3. When the car is being driven (where I got the muddy recording I was "discussing" in the previous two threads that you couldn't hear the noise well at all on), the same clicking sound is produced, at a bit more rapid frequency but in longer segments than just 1-3 clicks, enough to fill maybe a second or more of time. The second file is just the sections with the clicks, played in even succession, to better isolate it. The third is a *simulation* made using the recorded clicks by splicing them together at a faster rate with an audio editor to get an idea of what the sound is like on the road if the road noise, etc. wasn't there to mess it up and you could get close to the source.

File 1:

I tried to play both files several times and they will not play for me. The damned site is cluttered with all kinds of Click Me junk that it becomes a pain in the ass to even try. Mike - just take your car to a mechanic.

Doesn't it have a "click to download" or something like that? Did you right click it and hit "save as"?

If you cannot get it to work on your computer, I could email you a message with the files attached. Can I do that?

I can hear it, but I don't have a clue as to what it is. Sounds like a solenoid pulling in and letting go, but I don't know what would make that kind of noise. AC clutch? A valve opening and closing?

There is no AC on the car.

Are you too having trouble downloading it from the site? (Did you saving it to disk?) If so, could you suggest me a better file host for it? And if it's an ad you're getting, does it glitch and get caught in a loop? I don't know, I'm just asking, as it's aggravating: My first recording was crappy, and now I finally got a good one and nobody can download it!!! Argh! :(

.> Hi.

How could I determine if it was one of the other items on your list?

I know very little about cars. Nothing, really. But damn, I could swear I've heard that click (and the immediately subsequent rattle-grind) before.

Steve

How could I determine if it was one of the other items on your list?

You have to listen to each component. I'm not familiar with what equipment is on that engine, but some other cars had air pumps for pollution control and the valves can get noisy. If we were playing "Guess the Sound" at a party, I'd say it was the solenoid on the dishwasher drain valve.

Time to visit a mechanic.

Doesn't it have a "click to download" or something like that? Did you right click it and hit "save as"?

If you cannot get it to work on your computer, I could email you a message with the files attached. Can I do that?

Clicking the wave file does nothing. Trying to save target indicates it's going to save a com file from the service you use. Used both Mozilla and IE.

Yeah - you can email the files to me. Address below is correct, except for the obvious.

The power steering pump on my Pontiac used to make that exact sound.

I just sent an email now as of this posting.

Relax, Max! I was tongue in cheek! There was a pop-up ad running in the background! ;)

Unfortunately I can't tell what the noise is; someone mentioned a solenoid, but can you give more detail, ie, where on the car/engine is it coming from; it's doing it at idle, is it worse at speed/under loads?

Yeah, i thought so. Did you do a "save as" on the file?

Sometimes it does it at idling. This particular recording was taken when it was idling, which I thought would be the best time as then there's no wind and I could also get out and stick a recorder underneath the car (of course this was done on a home driveway and not on a road with other people driving on it) allowing for a crisp and sharp recording. I was trying gear shifting to see if that would provoke it, and it seemed to be happening then but I'm not sure how well it correlated with that gear shifting as on most shifts the sound didn't appear. I'm not sure exactly where it is coming from.

Other times it will happen on the road, with more clicks at a somewhat more rapid pace -- the third clip is a simulation made with the sound from the other clips to approximate it, as I'm not sure how I could get a good recording on the road with the wind and all that. I've thought of strapping a recorder or a mike to the underside of the car. Might give this a try and see what happens, if I can get a battery powered recorder to which a mike can be attached.

You know you could put your head down near the ground and use your ears to determine where the noise is coming from. For all we know this could be a squirrel in the trunk that makes a noise now and again.

jim

I think it might be this...

I.e. it's really that much of a stumper. But thank you for trying to help.