# Road Noise?



## Barmybob (Nov 4, 2015)

My wife currently has a MK2 Tdi Roadster S-line Special edition.

She has been considering upgrading to the Mk3 for a while and has been playing with the build your Audi feature quite a bit. Last week my A5 had to go in for warranty work (It is expected to be with them for several days) and I managed to obtain a brand new, registered first week in March, TT roadster for the week 

The car is an optioned up black 1.8 S-line with the optional 19 inch twin spoke alloy wheels fitted with Bridgestone tyres. The car obviously looks very pretty and things like the cool steering wheel, heater controls in the vents and the in dash navigation are fabulous. Less nice are the motor, the handling and the road noise.

The motor has to be worked to get the car to feel even slightly nippy. But all that revving really effects the economy and to be frank even when we've tried to get economy we've struggled to the car to deliver mid 30's 

Handling - Our old TT drives like it's on rails with super fast turn in, it's like driving a go-kart. The new TT, that we have, seems far less direct. The car does seem to sit a lot higher, maybe the car hasn't got the lowered sports suspension? All I know is that it doesn't feel anywhere near as much fun 

But saving the worst till last - road noise. My A5 3.0 black, on 19 inch rims is near silent inside. I have always found the wife's TT to be a little noisy but this new TT is terrible. You actually have to raise your voice to talk, and keep turning the radio up and down to over the racket coming from the wheels / tyres when the car is moving. It is so bad that it has actually put my wife off the whole upgrade idea. Have any of you who upgraded noticed this or could it just be an issue with this car and its suspension / wheel & tyre combination?


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## noname (Aug 20, 2015)

odd..I have 19 with Bridgestone and it's quite..more than the mk2! I can barely hear a pothole with the mk3..


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## EvilTed (Feb 5, 2016)

ManuTT said:


> odd..I have 19 with Bridgestone and it's quite..more than the mk2! I can barely hear a pothole with the mk3..


You bleedin' well feel them with 20's though.
I know each and every hole in the road on my commute far too well now. A good British standard pothole is enough to make you groan.
Road noise though, surprisingly absent on the coupe TTS on 20s. Certainly perfectly straight forward to hold a normal conversation at any speed and I've spent a number of moments quietly commending Audi on the quiet progress you can make.


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## ZephyR2 (Feb 20, 2013)

I've come from a Mk2 1.8 coupe to a Mk3 1.8 roadster and I don't think that the roadster is too bad for noise. I suspect "newness" is the cause of much of your disappointment. 
I'm on Conti tyres and they were quite noisy for the first 800 miles or so but they're fine now, apart from on certain road surfaces at motorway speeds. Cabin noise otherwise seems very good. However you can't expect to get big car refinement like in an A5 in a small roadster.
Likewise a new engine will need a good 1500 miles and more before it loosens up. Once I get out of the urban area I easily get 42+ mpg, without soft peddling. But only mid 30s in town traffic. It seems just as nippy as my old 1.8 coupe and should have a bit more poke than your Mk2 TDi. Won't be as quick as your 3.0 A5 though.
I'm surprised at your comments about handling as that is one thing that all of the critics have unanimously said is a massive improvement over the Mk2 TT. In fact the lighter 1.8 should be an even bigger improvement over the 2.0 TDi heavy lump in your old TT.

18 months ago I had an A5 V6 3.0 diesel S-line convertible for a couple of weeks. Whilst on paper it was significantly quicker than my TT it rarely felt like it. Apart from a long lag between putting your foot down and then getting the push in the back the refinement and softness of the car insulated you from much of the feel of the road. On top of that it drank diesel quicker than my 1.8 drank petrol.


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## Reasty (Feb 6, 2015)

EvilTed said:


> ManuTT said:
> 
> 
> > odd..I have 19 with Bridgestone and it's quite..more than the mk2! I can barely hear a pothole with the mk3..
> ...


totally agree,road noise with the 20s on my roadster is almost non existent,go down a pot hole tho and you need a chiropractor and a good scan of the wheels to make sure it hasnt done any damage.


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## Barmybob (Nov 4, 2015)

ZephyR2 said:


> 18 months ago I had an A5 V6 3.0 diesel S-line convertible for a couple of weeks. Whilst on paper it was significantly quicker than my TT it rarely felt like it. Apart from a long lag between putting your foot down and then getting the push in the back the refinement and softness of the car insulated you from much of the feel of the road. On top of that it drank diesel quicker than my 1.8 drank petrol.


My car has no lag and is far from soft, especially in dynamic mode. The DSG, sport diff and active suspension make for one very tight and very quick car. If you are sure you drove a 3.0, and not a 2.7 V6, then it must have been the 3.0 204ps version with the multitronic.

Anyhow I have been out for another spin with the 1.8 TT today, it was sunny so I just had to get the roof down too  I headed through the country lanes making some swift progress but not thrashing the car. I really enjoyed the drive but was somewhat disappointed to see sub 32mpg on the trip. So I re-set it and took a 65mph run along the dual carriageway for about 30 miles - mpg 33.9 :? Surely it should be much better than that? Oh and YES I am using 6th gear, and I've checked tyre pressures too 

When I collected this car it said range 100 miles. I had to put fuel in well before 100 miles but £20 gave me another 100 miles indicated range. After about 70 miles I had a fuel light again, so another £20 was deposited and again indicated range of 100 miles. Thus far I've put £40 of petrol in this car and currently have a range of just 50 miles left. But I've covered fewer than 200 miles. £60 of diesel in my A5 regularly returns 400+ miles - calculated to roughly 37mpg. My wife's 2.0 Tdi TT almost always returns mid 40's even into the 50's on a long run.

This evening I collected a friend, another Audi nut with a 2013 TTS roadster, his first words "Wow - that is one cool dash set up, but what's with the road noise?"

I really want to like this car but I am sadly finding it frustrating. If we do decide to replace the wife's roadster we will need to get a long term test drive of the model she wants before we place any order. Based upon this car it won't be a 1.8 petrol


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## ZephyR2 (Feb 20, 2013)

Go for the diesel model maybe. My mpg improved a lot once I'd put 1500+ miles on the clock.

Sent from my iPhone so this is what Autocorrect thinks I mean.


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## Barmybob (Nov 4, 2015)

It does look sweet though...


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## Barmybob (Nov 4, 2015)

ZephyR2 said:


> Go for the diesel model maybe.


All the negative press on diesels is giving the government a green light to impose higher costs on new diesels cars, with rumours it may even be applied retrospectively. This is why we were thinking of going back to petrol and the 1.8 seemed, on paper, like the perfect model to replace the tdi TT.










As I move closer to retirement an RS would also be a more viable option for me too. It would be nice to get an Audi 5 cylinder turbo back in my life :twisted:


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## aw159130 (Feb 27, 2016)

Whilst I was waiting for my TTS roadster to be built I had a series of cars on loan from the dealer. I had a couple of A5 diesel cabriolets (base model multitronics). These were fairly uninspiring to drive but were very quiet and refined cruisers.

I then had a TT roadster quattro s-tronic s-line on Bridgestone tyres. Having been driving the A5s for a month beforehand, the road noise came as a bit of a shock. It was about as far removed from the A5 as I could imagine.

When I eventually received the TTS it had Hankooks on and for all the criticism they are getting on this forum they were noticeably quieter than the Bridgestones.

It is hard to know whether a car has objectively got quieter over time or if you are simply getting used to it but I don't really notice road noise any more below motorway speeds.

I do think the Bridgestones are crap.


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## aw159130 (Feb 27, 2016)

Can't comment on the 1.8's fuel economy but I find the idea of expecting mid 30s out of a petrol TT fairly farcical. Over 4000 miles my TTS has averaged 26 mpg. My 10 mile daily commute averages anywhere from 22 to 28 depending on traffic and how many traffic lights I get stopped at. Doing 75 on a flat motorway on cruise control it seems to average about 33/34.

When I read about people getting high 30s/ 40 plus I assume they must be driving down hill and getting the car towed back to the top!


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## Barmybob (Nov 4, 2015)

aw159130 said:


> I then had a TT roadster quattro s-tronic s-line on Bridgestone tyres. Having been driving the A5s for a month beforehand, the road noise came as a bit of a shock. It was about as far removed from the A5 as I could imagine.


This is exactly what I was wondering. Is it just tyres.
Our MK2 TT is on Goodyear and it is significantly quieter than this car currently is. OK it's not A5 quiet but I am not silly enough to be expecting it to be.


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## Barmybob (Nov 4, 2015)

aw159130 said:


> Can't comment on the 1.8's fuel economy but I find the idea of expecting mid 30s out of a petrol TT fairly farcical.


Your farcical comment should surely be aimed at the claims made in the Audi TT brochure, not my expectation. The combined MPG figure that Audi give for or the 1.8 roadster is 46.3 mpg, an extra urban claim of 54.3 and the urban figure is 36.7mpg.

If I were able to achieve the urban figure it would be a start. I was starting to think that perhaps the trip computer had been set to US mpg.

26mpg for a TTS is worse than what some of the TTRS peeps are reporting


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## 4433allanr (Mar 11, 2016)

Road noise on Conti 18's is not a problem, just back from a run to Torquay and back via Chepstow, I can say that some road surfaces are much worse than others. After 3000 miles of normal driving, although not much town driving, the trip computer reads 44.1mpg, I can live with that.


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## Alan Sl (Nov 11, 2009)

Barmybob said:


> My wife currently has a MK2 Tdi Roadster S-line Special edition.
> 
> She has been considering upgrading to the Mk3 for a while and has been playing with the build your Audi feature quite a bit. Last week my A5 had to go in for warranty work (It is expected to be with them for several days) and I managed to obtain a brand new, registered first week in March, TT roadster for the week
> 
> ...


Sadly your experience of the mk3 roadster noise issue is similar to mine. I had 2 mk2s previously and there was no noise issues what so ever. When we collected the the car I noticed the noise within 400 Meters of driving it. I Didn't say anything to my wife who was in the car at the time. She even picked up on the noise. My car has got hankook tyres which I think is part of the problem. I was also getting a bit of noise from the boot area. Looking in the boot it just doesn't look well finished off compared to mk 2's. To cut a long story short I purchased some additional sound proofing for the boot area this was stuck on the under side of the parcel shelve area (I had to cut some air vent slots in to the sound proofing) and the rear bulk head. This has helped.


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## Alan Sl (Nov 11, 2009)

I should have also said that I went from the TDI to a 2.0l TSI Quattro. At first (for approx 2000 miles) thought oh my god what have I done. I loved the characteristics of the diesel and really didn't care much for the mk3 purchased. I have to say now really enjoying it and for us the petrol was the right choice. Miss the mpg of the diesel and seem to spend all the time at the petrol station but still on balance the right choice or us.


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## ZephyR2 (Feb 20, 2013)

TBH I always found the Bridgestones on my Mk2 coupe created a lot of road noise so I don't find my roadster, running on Conti 5s, much different.



aw159130 said:


> Can't comment on the 1.8's fuel economy but I find the idea of expecting mid 30s out of a petrol TT fairly farcical. Over 4000 miles my TTS has averaged 26 mpg. My 10 mile daily commute averages anywhere from 22 to 28 depending on traffic and how many traffic lights I get stopped at. Doing 75 on a flat motorway on cruise control it seems to average about 33/34.
> 
> When I read about people getting high 30s/ 40 plus I assume they must be driving down hill and getting the car towed back to the top!


Well you wouldn't get figures like that in a TTS and nor should you expect it. But never had much trouble getting reasonable mpg, like those you quote, in either of my lesser powered 1.8s. However I've never got anywhere near those mythical Extra-urban figures.


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## Blackhole128 (Dec 24, 2015)

My 2.0 S-tronic coupé got 43mpg on a long-ish run from Wrexham to Birmingham for a concert. I was driving like the accelerator was made out of eggshell though and was mostly in Economy mode.

If I thrash it in Dynamic mode, I typically get around 26mpg, though it's easy to get in the low thirties if I don't drive like a loon.

As for road noise, it's better than my (admittedly convertible) Z4 hardtop. I originally had Bridgestones on the TT, but just changed to Firestone F1 Asy 3's and I think there's a slight improvement in road noise. Compared to my last cars (two convertibles) I think the TT is a relatively quiet machine - conversations are far better at speed than I've been used to.

I guess it comes down to what you've been used to previously...


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## dids66 (Feb 7, 2017)

Went for a run a weekend Stockport to Telford down the A49 and back, got 42 mpg if you believe the trip meter. Thats in my 1.8 S line.


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## brittan (May 18, 2007)

Mine is on Hankook tyres and I find the car has significantly more road/tyre noise than my previous RS, which was also the coupe version.

The noise changes with road surface and I've been doing some comparison runs on a local dual carriageway which has one lane in relatively new smoooooth tarmac and the other in older, coarser surface. The change in noise when changing lanes is very noticeable.
I've also found that there is more road/tyre noise when the roads are wet. Initially I thought that was the additional sound component from water being flung against the wheel arches however when driving through some shallow surface water running across a road the noise decreased for the 1 to 2 seconds it took. Curious.

I wonder how a warranty claim for new, quiet tyres would be received? :roll: 
Which tyres are best for a quiet life?

With the Mk2 cars I always found that I was getting higher mpg in my RS than others were quoting for their TTS.
It seems to be going the same way for the Mk3 cars. I'm expecting good mpg from the RS on long trips - in 7th gear at 70mph it's just ticking over at 2000rpm.


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## Barmybob (Nov 4, 2015)

dids66 said:


> Went for a run a weekend Stockport to Telford down the A49 and back, got 42 mpg if you believe the trip meter. Thats in my 1.8 S line.


Now that is more like it. My wife has a 25 mile each way commute so figures like this could make the 1.8 a more viable option to the diesel, thanks


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## dids66 (Feb 7, 2017)

Ive had diesel cars 13 year's,Skoda fabia vrs and Seat Leon FR184 both fast and fantastic on fuel but the diesel car is dead and buried.That's why I have gone for 1.8 petrol and not the 2.0L diesel which i know is a great engine because my Seat had it.I could get 45 miles around town and 55 to 60 on the motorway in it.


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## ZephyR2 (Feb 20, 2013)

Just been out this morning. Mix of urban 30 mph roads, 50 mph restricted motorway and unrestricted :wink: motorway with a couple of spirited burns.
Drive Select = Auto and Stop/Start always turned off .....


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## Barmybob (Nov 4, 2015)

One more A5 rotor to clean and polish and I'll go for a spin....

*EDIT*

I set the car into Efficiency mode got the car warmed up and re-set the trip. I then took a drive to Newmarket on the dual carriageway at a steady 65 mph. I watched the numbers rise and for the first time saw the trip record over 40mpg before I exited the A14 and drove into town -38.9 by the time I parked up 

Got back into the car, quite a lot of traffic so came back home along the green lanes. I arrived home with 37.8 still showing so it does seem to be slowly improving 

This little car is really growing on me but I do really want my A5 back


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## Edinburra (Aug 19, 2016)

Barmybob said:


> One more A5 rotor to clean and polish and I'll go for a spin....


Question, please, the A5 rotors that you talk about obviously fits your TT, what size and if you don't mind where did you come by them?


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## deeve (Apr 5, 2004)

The biggest culprit for road noise is the road surface. Go on the concrete section of the M1 and it is unbearable, go on one of the new 'quietsurfaces' around Heathrow for example and it really is quiet.
If you stuff the back of the car with blankets and duvets its surprising what a difference that makes :lol:


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## Rumney (Feb 7, 2017)

My current car is a 2010 Porsche Boxster 2.9 (Mk3 TT Roadster S-Line on order). When I had a test drive in the TT 2.0 TFSI Roadster the difference was chalk and cheese - the TT was much much quieter both in wind noise and especially road roar from the wheels and tyres.

As previously stated in this thread - it all depends on what you are comparing the TT with - yes, it's no limo but it's much quieter that a Boxster I can assure you


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## Barmybob (Nov 4, 2015)

Edinburra said:


> Question, please, the A5 rotors that you talk about obviously fits your TT, what size and if you don't mind where did you come by them?


The A5 rotors are from my A5, which is currently on winter wheels and stuck in the Audi dealership  I do wish that the A5 and TT MK2 wheels were interchangeable but the offsets are miles off. I also have no idea what the off sets are for the MK3 TT



Rumney said:


> As previously stated in this thread - it all depends on what you are comparing the TT with - yes, it's no limo but it's much quieter that a Boxster I can assure you


As previously stated - Our Mk2 TT TDi S-line Roadster


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## ianle (Apr 2, 2015)

I've got 19" Bridgestones and I recently took it to the garage to get the tyre pressures checked and set to 28 Fr, 33 rear as per the detail on the inside of the door (for 2 people little load) as it tends to be just me in the car. The road noise became instantly louder and the car didn't seem to deal with the road surface as well. I returned and put in 36 Fr and 33 rear ('5' people and load) and the car handled better with lower road noise.

Ian.


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## brittan (May 18, 2007)

Raising the tyre pressures does seem to work. I set mine (Hankooks) to 39psi Front and 34psi Rear and a sort test on the dual carriageway with smooth and coarse tarmac showed a small decrease in tyre noise.

The change of road surface makes much more difference than changing tyre pressures and I suspect more difference than changing to a set of 'quieter' tyres.


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## daddow (Jan 1, 2017)

Never anymore than 24mpg down here and if you don't like road noise this certainly is not the place to come the roads are terrible. I do the sales rep trick, when you've knackered the engine turn the radio up :lol:


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## Barmybob (Nov 4, 2015)

OK peeps car went back today. I called up Audi yesterday and they added my wife to the car so she could drive it.

Got a call from her today after taking it back. She said she really couldn't live with the road noise with the roof up! It's not all bad though as she's looked over a Mk2 roadster Amplified black edition and wants to trade up to one of those, so a bit of a saving over a MK3 

Now to try and find a one, TDi in Orange, red or Daytona. They all seem to be in white


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## GavinE (Aug 21, 2016)

Road noise! My coupe is on 20 inch wheels with P-Zero tyres. 255/30 20.
The road noise is ridiculous. At 50 mph and above you can't use the phone in the car as the other person can't hear you.

At 70mph, you are having to raise your voice a lot to speak to your passenger.

This is noticeably different to the demo car we had that was running 19inch wheels with hankook tyres.


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## Barmybob (Nov 4, 2015)

Not sure if you peeps cross borders into the other groups but Mrs BB has gone with a late MK2 Amplified Black. She collects it tomorrow 

Bit of a shame that she didn't gel with the Mk3 but I am fairly sure we'll be back. I do need to get a bit closer to retirement to be able to justify the RS though


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## ZephyR2 (Feb 20, 2013)

Yeah I did see that BB. As long as she likes it that's the main thing.

Sent from my iPhone so this is what Autocorrect thinks I mean.


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## 4433allanr (Mar 11, 2016)

Don't blame you, there are some real mk2 bargains out there. Spoke to a lady the other day with a gorgeous limited edition mk2 TTs in what looked like nardo grey. I could be tempted.


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