In my 2003 Copen, when I put my foot down and the turbo kicks in, there is a loud whistling or shrieking noise. Does anyone know anything of this? I let a friend's husband, who is a car mechanic, take it for a spin, and he says the car is running just fine, and he doesn't know what the noise is, but he doesn't think it should be there. As this is the first Copen I've ever seen, much less driven, I have nothing to compare it to. But it is kinda embarrassing. People tend to stare at Copens anyway, but a lot moreso when it's screaming like a banshee. The only thing the mechanic could point to was the round aftermarket air filter that someone has fitted. "Maybe it's coming from that", he said.
I would say, open air return from BOV. Take a look here. No return to airbox to silenced it. Do you hear your blow off valve working?
I have no previous experience with turbos, so I don't know what's normal and what isn't. Now I'm really worried. I just went up to the shops to get a few things, and on the way there, there was suddenly a loss of power, and no more turbo noise. The car seems to run fine, just no power. Doesn't like to go up hills. What worries me is I was just reading Emma's thread where the turbo failed after one day. The symptoms seem similar. But I don't want to believe that. What other things can cause loss of power? How can I tell if turbo is ok or not? Is it difficult to remove and check? I'm pretty handy with mechanical things but, like I said, I have no experience with any kind of turbo, so I don't know what I'm looking at. Another thing I don't understand is that the MIL doesn't come on to say something is wrong. Oh, wait, I've already been through that. There's no OBDII in Australia until 2006. If there's no OBD, how do you troubleshoot engine problems? I don't know what to do. I've only had the car 3 weeks.
First thing I'd do is check all the rubber/plastic pipes and hoses in case one has a split or come loose. Every pipe between the turbo outlet and the manifold including the intercooler pipes. A split pipe could also explain the noise you where hearing. The copen still has a check engine light and you can still pull codes of the computer if you need to but if the turbo has stopped working or a pipe has split as far as the computer is concerned the motor is still OK as it will be getting a pressure reading from the map sensor and delivering the correct amount of fuel regardless of if there is boost or not.
Ok, I checked all the plumbing and can't find any split hoses or anything. Engine runs calmly now, and... quiet... I googled "Turbo failure symptoms" and one of the first things listed was "Loud shrieking noise". I've been asking everybody what this noise might be, nobody said anything. So is there anything dangerous about driving the car with no turbo, apart from being unable to move quickly anymore, and being run over by semi-trailers? The horrifying question is, how much is this going to cost me to fix? This is Australia, the land of high prices for everything. Parts for an exotic car? Unaffordable, most likely. I can get one from England on Ebay, for around $AU1500. I'd be willing to bet that's cheaper than I can get it way down here. Any Oz members have any ideas? I'm all ears. The car has just under 90,000 km on it. How long does the turbo last on one of these vehicles if it's looked after properly? I mightn't have bought it if I knew this was going to happen. I paid a lot of money for it. Over $AU7,000. Rest of the car seems to be in pretty good shape. I wonder if any of welz's contacts could be helpful? Seems he had some good ideas for Emma recently with her turbo troubles. I went to the German website he suggested, but my German is not up to the task of navigating it properly. Also, if/when I get my hands on one, can I fit it myself? I'm fairly mechanically handy, though I tend to swear quite a bit. But at least it's at the front of the engine, pretty accessible.
hello, some bro need me. Hm, bad news. You can call maybe help from GCG Turbochargers - OEM & Performance Turbochargers & Accessories If your turbo comes dead..often black smoke (burning oel) comes out of the exaust..if he cracks oel come from his bodyframe. because oel gets in to your airsystem. I dont know about your Air Filter, thats not the orginal? or? Dead Turbo Question???? - AudiForums.com Turbo changes are easy , but if you hadnt done it befor. let it make.. but think expensive too. you can ask Emma maybe she can tell you the costs... good luck.bro
Thank you, welz. I have contacted a guy in Japan who makes a business out of chasing up parts and shipping them out. I think I can get it for about $AU1300 (about 915 Euros), I think it would be a lot more than that from GCG. Everything is expensive here. Turbo doesn't seem to be cracked; just stopped turning. No black smoke or anything, just loss of power. The air filter is HKS one, like the picture. Am I asking for trouble if I continue to drive the car with broken turbo? I still have my old car, but someone is coming today to maybe buy it.
Try pulling the inlet pipe off the turbo and spin the rotor by hand. (Engine off of course) If it doesn't turn or feels rough it's bad news. Might be a good time to think about upgrading to the HKS turbo kit as its only an extra $1000 or so more over an OME replacement last time I looked. That's my plan if my turbo dies. You could try a turbo rebuilder too. They might be able to put new bearing in them. Whatever you do before you put the new turbo on check the oil feed and oil outlet pipe for the turbo for blockages otherwise once the new turbo goes on it will die as well. I don't think it would cause any issues driving it without the turbo but I'd avoid it as much as possible.
Erm... I feel pretty stupid. I put a piece of dacron fleecy stuff behind the air filter, thinking it would help filtration, and maybe stop some of the noise, if that's where it's coming from. The piece I put in got sucked into the turbine and lodged there, so it couldn't turn. Just as well, could've been worse. I fished it out with surgical forceps, and all is well again. Except the shrieking noise is back, of course. Welz may be right about it being the BOV, with the sponge filter being transparent to sound. But if shrieking noise is really symptom of failing turbo... I don't know if I should go ahead and get new turbo anyway, so that when it does fail, I will have the part here and can fix it quickly. It's a lot of money, but it probably won't get any cheaper, either. The HKS unit, although I couldn't get price and availability info for it, seems to aim at the high-rev end of the spectrum to get the added performance. This would be appreciated by real rev-heads, but I'm 72 and don't drive like that (too much). I knew when I bought it that this car demands a lot of attention from its owner, but I don't intend to spend all my spare time with it, either. Just make sure of regular servicing, as I have done with the Sirion, and have had 8 years of trouble-free motoring from that one. Anyway, thanks, guys for all the advice. It's good to know you're here when I get stuck. Now I go back to what I was doing before: replacing the taillights with LED bulbs. I got the RH taillight assembly out, only broke one of the clips, but I can't seem to dislodge the LH one. Using a plastic cooking spatula. Worked on the other one. Tried yesterday to replace the low beam headlights with H1 LED ones, but they are different, and have a heatsink/fan at the back which blocks the clip from fastening. Have to do more thinking about that one. You have to remove the whole front of the car to get at them.
That's funny but good news. You might want to think about getting an original air filter box as that would quiet it down. I've never been a fan of the sports filters and they are technically illegal in some states (QLD they are illegal unless enclosed in a box of some sort). With a fragile turbo you want the best filtration. Try new model wreckers, they always seem to have Copens in stock and they are in NSW. Good luck with your bulbs, it's tight getting to them. Careful using LED bulbs too some of them are illegal too, need to be ARD approved.
Hi mate, thats are good news.. and was a bad idea.. your sport filter doesnt have a closed return from the BOV like a normal filterbox included. You can see it on some of my pictures. The turbosound really beats so volume up , nice for some guys but also in germany not allowed on public streets and it is not a good engine air control. I would search for an orginal airbox instead of a turbo sparepart also then you can have a look for a D-Sports airfilter with bigger inlet. . Maybe ask your previous owner. good luck.
@welz Yes, I see that it was a bad idea. I don't usually do stupid things like that. Thanks, jez, I have put an enquiry email into New Model Wreckers, see what comes back. Welz, I wonder if I can leave the pod filter as it is, but feed the BOV into some sort of muffler thing. If the existing pod filter is filtering ok, then maybe better to try eliminating the noise itself?? Of course, I would have to positively identify the BOV; I think I have, but I could be wrong. Could I hurt anything by disconnecting it and trying some experiments with muffling it? I am a lifelong experimenter, always looking for imaginative solutions to problems. Previous owner was a lady; I doubt she installed the pod filter.
Hi mate, think you dont understand working of BOV and its aircleaner return. Normal its a close system. SUPER SQV | BLOW OFF | PRODUCT | HKS this is a example. I will try to make some pictures in the next days. I ll then explane the function .
Hi welz I saw one of your posts where you described installing one of these. I thought you modified it to return to air cleaner, but it was designed to blow into free air. Maybe I understood wrong. But thinking about what I've got, the screeching/whistling noise I get is when accelerating, whereas BOV comes in when you lift your foot from accelerator. This is so? So my noise cannot be BOV. Anyway, I tried disconnecting BOV from air cleaner, plugging up the hole left, and feeding the BOV into a little muffler made from tin can, to see what happens. Noise is different, BOV makes more distinctive noise, but screeching/whistling noise is still there. Only when hard accelerating. I still don't know what it is, because I can't create this noise when car is still, only when driving. Maybe I will try recording the noise while I'm driving and see if I can upload it. It still seems to me the noise comes from the HKS pod filter. I have been quoted $AU160 for a second-hand original filter box, that's a lot of money and I can't be sure it will have all needed hoses, fittings, etc. Meanwhile, the lady I bought it from has offered for me to talk to her son, who was looking after the car before, and says he can explain all about the air filter. I better do that before I buy this expensive filter box.
It may not have anything to do with the turbo at all. I've had an alternator/fan belt that made those noises. Can be from the belt being to loose or to tight. Some fuel injectors can make weird noises under load too.
Thanks, guys, all input is appreciated. Here's what I have tried next: I connected the BOV back where it came from; the noise it was making was interesting, but not what I was after. I am always trying different things to get more info about the problem, so - What I've done now is I've put 3x layers of microfibre cloth over the pod airfilter. Going for a drive shows the shrieking noise much diminished. Almost acceptable. You can still hear it, but not overpowering or embarrassing. Are there any negative consequences to leaving it this way? This shows that the trouble is certainly coming from the aftermarket air filter, as I suspected all along. The noise is probably muffled by the stock air filter. Whether this "fix" interferes with the breathing or not, I can't say. But it seems to me that it wouldn't be any more restrictive than the stock air filter. As always, I am open to all opinions.
Nobody wants to venture an opinion as to whether the microfibre cloth is a good idea or not. It's certainly contained the problem; the shrieking noise is still there, but much diminished. The car still seems to run just fine. I guess I'll just leave them there. Meanwhile, I have gassed up the A/C with LPG, and it works just fine. It only took 100 grams or so of gas, which is a pretty small amount, and has been working fine for about a month now. We had some really hot 43C days this summer, so it wasn't much fun with no working A/C. At least I got to be cool for the last bit of it.
That would be me! I've sent you a private message, so if you can get back to me, I can help you out. My latest Copen build has led to a bit of a collection of spares, so I'm happy to swap your squealy turbo and pod filter setup for the stock ones.
I've been hesitant to post anymore since I started zeroing in on the blow-off valve as the culprit. Looking at aftermarket ones, including the one that welz has fitted to his, I can't understand why they are so expensive. It's a pretty simple piece of gear, and I'm not willing to fork over hundreds of dollars for such a thing. Well, I found on Ebay a generic bov for $15 from China, so I bought one. It finally arrived today, and I wasted no time in installing it. I mainly used Number6's helpful video where he changed his BOV. It was a little difficult, using the original bits of rubber hose; if they'd been a little longer it would have been easier. I will have to chase up some hose bits and do it over. One of them should be bent, that would work a lot better. I will post a photo, though I'd rather wait till it looks better. This is the $15 BOV from Ebay. I don't know if it shows well enough; I cut off the "horn" and removed the whistler part of it. I didn't think I needed that. As well as the outlet port, it also has holes all around. I covered them with high-temperature Kapton tape, I don't know how long that will last. Hopefully until I find a better way to plug them up. You can see on the right I've joined the original two vacuum hoses together with a little piece of copper tube. The clear tube from the left side of the valve goes to the manifold; I removed the existing tubing and connected both it and the new one via a "T" piece. At the bottom, it's obvious that it will be a lot better when I replace the right-side hose with an "L" shaped one. You'd think the new valve would be fouling the throttle cable, but no, it just misses it. Anyway, I took it for a spin, and guess what? The shrieking noise is gone. It still whistles when it blows, not sure why that is. It could be my imagination, but I think it's got more zip now, too. I mostly used Number6's video clip of him changing his BOV as a guide. I joined the original two vacuum hoses together, and connected the new BOV to the manifold with a "T" connector. Unfortunately, that didn't get included in the photo. But you can see why I want a right-angled piece of hose. I'm surprised I don't have one, with all the crap I've got around my place.
