DaveK

My turbo has developed a high pitch whine from the luggage compartment. It starts almost immediately that I start the car, and happens when the car is stationary or moving. It's a constant noise and does not vary with engine speed.

Pushing the clutch in doesn't stop it, and neither does disabling the air con or interior fans.

I've taken some of plastic covering off from the luggage compartment - and it sounds very much like it's coming from the area to the RHS of the battery. The attached pic shows the two items I suspected circled - but I've been told on another forum that both of them are related to my brakes and it can't be either - although it really did sound like it was coming from the one circled in blue.

Even if it can't be them - the sound is clearly coming from that area of the car. Anything else close that could be causing the whine? Somebody suggested fuel pump - and from Adrian Streathers book I get the impression that might be in that area (under the battery?). It doesn't sound like it's coming from the middle part of the luggage area, but I guess I can't be sure how the sound would be travelling.

jpflip

What you circle in blue is the booster pump for the PSM system. It is an electric motor couple to a pump. . This pump start as soon you got the ignition on. It is possible that you have a defective motor. Never heard about a failure of this unit but it is a possibility that the noise you are mentioning is coming from this "expensive" unit.

DaveK

Thanks. I'll hope I'm wrong and it's not that then!

jimq

its not your girlfriend?

DaveK

Very funny!

You know very well that only happens in the 964.....

jimq

yea I hear it in the 964 occasionally also. Usually in the TT its a high pitched scream

Land Jet

Dave, the fuel pump is a known problem part. I have never heard of the PSM unit going bad but there's always a first time. Have an expert check this out before you start spending money. Good luck.

Macster

I have no idea. But I wonder if it is the PSM pump would disabling the PSM feature -- isn't there a button on the dash that controls this? -- might doing this and seeing if the noise affected -- or not -- be a good thing to try?

Sincerely,

Macster.

DaveK

Good idea - I tried the PSM switch but it made no difference.

I also pulled 3 fuses all listed as PSM, and that also made no difference so I suspect it may turn out to be the fuel pump.

The car is booked in for a major service on Wednesday - it's clearly not going to be a cheap one. I think I need at least one radiator, and perhaps a fuel pump too - plus a few other issues. I guess I'm going to find out whether the 3rd party warranty is worth the paper it's written on.....

dantzig

It is most likely your fuel pump. It lives in the fuel tank, below the black plastic dome in the center, just in front of the battery, held on by 4 cap screws.

How much fuel is in the tank? Noise is more pronounced at low fuel levels if the fuel pump. Try filling the tank - does it go away?

My indy tells me that they all make noise. Mine starts to do it below about 1/4 tank of fuel.

Jon

DaveK

You're right - I took the cap off the top and it is the fuel pump making the noise.

I posted when the tank was near empty, but it's been filled since then and the noise is just the same. It's way too loud to be normal - at idle / low revs you can hear it inside the car clearly, and outside the car over the noise of the exhausts.

Land Jet

Dave, how many miles are on your car?

DaveK

That's the really frustrating thing. I bought it 10 months ago - it was a one owner, 20k mile car. It now has 31k miles on it - so hardly high mileage. And yet it almost always seems to have something wrong with it.

I'm hoping that the service on Wednesday will sort all the current problems and then it might behave itself for a while.

dantzig

Maybe you need a louder exhaust - just kidding.

I feel your frustration Dave. Mine seems to have one issue or another almost all the time. Here is a very thorough write-up on the fuel pump, plumbing and replacement:
http://www.6speedonline.com/forums/9...-pictures.html

Hope that helps.

Jon

Macster

Well, you kind of fell into the assumption that low miles equal a no problem car. It is an assumption based more on hope though.

I entirely sympathize with your situation -- I'm in a similar one with my low miles 03 Turbo -- but these cars came with a 4 year 50K mile warranty.

And at 20K miles in your car's case, and in my car's case 9500 miles (that's all the miles the car had on it when I bought a year ago last June), these are not nearly enough miles to sort out the bugs.

Sure, one hopes there are no bugs to sort out. My 02 Boxster at 25K had had a RMS and a bad key module replaced and then nothing for another 50K miles.

But my 03 Turbo has required a idler roller bearing, a new passenger side radiator fan motor, a new radiator (the hub/blade assembly snapped the shaft and damaged the radiator) and a new (or remanufact.) 6-speed tranmission to address a leaking selector shaft seal.

Oh, and a new radiator cap. All before it racked up 35K miles. The odometer just rolled over 35K miles on my current road trip (I'm sitting in a motel in Kingman AZ typing this).

Thankfully in my car's case it came with a 2 year, 100K mile CPO warranty which helped soften the blow of the above items needing replacing. A lot.

All you can do is address things as they appear and hope that sooner rather than later all these things wil be taken care of and the car will settle down into a nice long time period where it needs nothing but regular servicing and having normal wear/tear items renewed.

That's what I'm hoping for. I believe I can collect another 15K miles on this car before next June rolls around the warranty expires and by that time, in those miles, all problems will have been sorted out.

Had the original owner driven the car more than a few thousand miles every year he owned it chances are these problems would have been brought out then.

Anyhow, I hope you get the problem with your car sorted out to your satisfaction and no more appear.

Sincerely,

Macster.