Our findings in the workshop sometimes astonish us, but we did laugh at this one!

We were completing the service requirement details of this well looked after Porsche Cayenne when the customer mentioned a worrying noise she had heard.

She specifically complained about a “slopping” sound when cornering and braking hard?  “It’s not the fuel in the tank” she said, “I can still hear it when I’ve filled the car to the maximum”.  Her Husband proceeded to inform us that he has never heard it whenever she mentioned the noise. “It sounds like fish in a fish bowl” she added.

I informed the designated Technician what the customer had said and off he went on his initial road test.

On returning to the workshop the Technician had heard a peculiar noise when going road corners on his road test.  He said it sounded like a wave, we all laughed.

Prior to carrying out the service the Technician decided to investigate this weird noise.

The majority of Porsche vehicles have large air intakes to cool certain parts of the vehicle I.E., brake discs, cooling radiators etc. and it’s common practice to vacuum leaves and partly cleanse these air ducts and drain exits as part of the service interval.

The Technicians preliminary investigation identified the front drain holes blocked with leaves and silt.  These are situated under both the front wheel arches.  Failure to clean these periodically can end up filling this area of body section with water that cannot escape.  Some water trickled out from the front drain holes on removal of the rubber plugs, but not enough to cause the noise he had heard.

The car was rocked back and forth, he could still hear a wave of water.  Wanting to bottom the problem, he further removed the plastic under tray trim from underneath the chassis sill section and removed the additional rubber bungs located on both sill areas.

You can clearly see what he was presented with on the video.

In conclusion, the car must have had water run down the windscreen vents into the rain deposit channels, these had filled with leaves and silt blocking them.  The water had continued filling up into the chassis sill sections until released via the rubber drain bungs.

No more fish noises or wave sounds.

Admittedly, you had to see it to believe it!