Hissing, knocking, clunking, squealing, screeching, rattling and more

April 28, 2017 1:56 PM

A library of car noises. A new automotive diagnostic app, called ClingClanger, When Your Car Makes Noise, uses a library of failing car noises to help car owners diagnose mechanical problems.
posted by nickyskye (11 comments total)

Click and Clack Tappet would have loved this.
posted by Faint of Butt at 2:00 PM on April 28, 2017 [9 favorites]

Surely it could've been called the Click-n-Clacker?
posted by Strange Interlude at 2:01 PM on April 28, 2017 [4 favorites]

Although a Click and Clack app would also have to guess the spelling of your name and color of car based on the noises. I miss those guys.
posted by ensign_ricky at 2:27 PM on April 28, 2017 [4 favorites]

This sort of thing is super useful. A bearing went out on my belt tensioner while I was out of town recently, and I saved myself a ton of hassle and expense by understanding what the noise meant in the context of how the car was performing. The dealership where I had to go for the repair would have only been too happy to charge me for all the diagnostic labor and whatever else they could dream up, but because I knew what the issue was I escaped relatively unscathed.
posted by carsonb at 2:36 PM on April 28, 2017 [1 favorite]

My car will sometimes make this atonal shrieking noise that traverses a wide pitch range and is punctuated by arrhythmic plonking sounds, and the only way to stop it is to pause the Diamanda Galas album on the stereo.
posted by FatherDagon at 2:40 PM on April 28, 2017 [18 favorites]

This is a fantastic idea!
posted by das_2099 at 4:15 PM on April 28, 2017

Of course I went straight to the Full Sound Library and pushed all the play buttons as fast as I could. Then I scrolled back to the top and pushed them again.

Vroooooom!
posted by moonmilk at 5:13 PM on April 28, 2017 [2 favorites]

But when my mechanic listens to that library he doesn't hear anything
posted by Rob Rockets at 6:45 PM on April 28, 2017 [11 favorites]

This could be useful, but I am having weird twitches and thinking this will be the WebMD nightmare of cars on behalf of the next auto shop they take their car into. People coming in and deciding what the issue is just on the sound is a minefield. Especially when at least one of those first set of sounds could have been the sound of a perfectly fine engine with the air cleaner off.

Still. I've tried to get people to describe the sound of an issue in askme enough that it may be helpful...
posted by Brockles at 7:06 PM on April 28, 2017

Mickey Mouse: Mickey's Service Station (1935) — Mickey, Donald [no, not The Donald], and Goofy try to fix a squeak.
posted by cenoxo at 8:12 PM on April 28, 2017 [1 favorite]

I wanted to do this for hard drive failure modes, back when we used hard drives that spun and made noise.
posted by jjwiseman at 8:44 PM on April 28, 2017 [1 favorite]