Hi. I've had my tC for a few months, I got it used with 31k miles on it, certified pre-owned with all sorts of warranties. It's an automatic transmission.

Just this week it started making this high pitched whistling noise when I accelerate. It starts as soon as I start accelerating and rises in pitch as the engine RPMs go up. It definitely sounds like it's coming from the engine. It started doing it while I was driving in a thunderstorm.

The car seems to be running fine otherwise; the check engine light isn't on, it seems to be driving okay. All the fluid levels are good.

I know it's pretty difficult to diagnose from a description, but I just wanted to know if you guys though I should bring it in to the service center and if you had any speculation as to what it is?

 

Is everything still stock? If there is a CAI, there's a good chance that is it.

 

Stock as far as I know. It's used, I don't know what the previous owner did with it, but I wasn't told about any modifications so i'm pretty sure it's stock.

 

The stock intake whistles anyway, just not as loudly. Check the intake piping before the air filter if it's stock, sometimes stuff could get caught in there. I'd be willing to bet it is the sunroof or the intake though.

 

I don't understand why the intate or the sunroof would start making noise suddenly though. It didn't gradually get louder, it just started whistling all of a sudden in the middle of a drive. Something getting caught in the intake makes sense though.

I know next to nothing about cars though, so I have to admit, I have no idea how I would go about checking the intake piping. I'm trying to learn a little about mechanics but at the moment i'm a complete noob.

 

Okay open your hood and look to the driver side corner, you'll see black piping leading to a large black box right next to the fuse box. Right on the wall of the engine bay on the right side, the piping for the intake points down, check that piping for noise.

 

Check your stereo. Is it aftermarket? I had a bad ground in my stereo and it whistled with the rpms. almost sounded like a SC, was kinda cool. but not loud enough to be intimidating.

 

The noise dose sound a little like that, but it happens with the stereo off, and i've got a stock stereo.

 

I found the intake pipe. It looks like it wasn't properly attached- only one of the two screws on it was actually holding it in place.

I can't really get it out to see if there's anything in it. Do I have to remove something to get it out?

 

I think you may have just realized the whistling. I had my tC for a few months and one day I heard the whistling. I thought there was something wrong just like you but after reading here I found out it was normal for the intake to whistle. If it is really loud then maybe you have a prob, but I bet its fine.

 

I guess it's *possible*, but i'm pretty darn sure this is something new.

 

Ugh... I dropped a screw into the inside of the bumper.

 

^^ Well, get it. Never done this on my tC, but on my Beretta, you could remove the protective plastic shroud underneath the car, in case you dropped something. Which I did. Repeatedly.

 

Actually, i'm not sure where the hell it went. I don't see it, and I shook the plastic shroud you're talking about and I didn't hear it.

Looks like I got myself into more work than I bargained for, which would be fine, but it's about 100 degrees out.

 

That always sucks. I dropped a few mystery screws from my Beretta. I know I dropped them, I know they hit metal, but I couldn't find them. Here's to hoping you find it! (I'd help more, but to be frank, I haven't looked under the hood much and don't know the placement of everything yet.)