Is this idle noise normal? Cricket sound
 

I'm not familiar with boxer engines; I hear they can be quite noisy, but I'm not sure if this is normal. Here is a video I took of the noise. It is only audible during idle and seems to be coming from what I think is the crankshaft pulley.

Also, this can be unrelated, but there is a pulley that is shaking in the video. I marked it with a caption.

Anyone with boxer experience have any insight?

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=csYmda3dGVY"]FR-S Engine Noise - YouTube[/ame]

Update:
I took the car into the Toyota Dealer today (6/15), I asked for a mechanic to come and listen. About 7 people show up, about 3 or 4 of which are mechanics. Even the Foreman was there. One of them has a WRX so he was familiar with how noisy boxers can be. He was positive the cricket noise was coming from the Direct Injection system (primarily from the drivers side). He said the tension pulley was behaving normally; the shaking was normal.

Both he and the Foreman suggested I hold off on leaving it at the shop until they do some research with their corporate contact, primarily because they have no other FR-S or BRZ to compare it to. They said they would contact me next week.

Update 2:

The Foreman from the Toyota dealer just called me. He did some research and is 95% sure the noise we are hearing is the DI system, which switches modes depending on temperature and other factors.

You've got a warranty still, have the dealer inspect it. Mine doesn't squeak like that. I only have the injector noise, but I only have 200 miles on mine.

Some of those sounds are normal but the chirping/squealing is not. Get it to a dealer to be safe and if there is something wrong you can also help others by relaying your experience here. Thanks

Good luck.

definitely sounds like a slipping serpentine belt to me.

I notice mine chips a bit too. rev it up just a bit and it stops but at idle you can hear it.

Mine does it and there is a thread, or at least comments in a thread, about it on the forum somewhere.

Video is good representation of the "issue".

I have never heard this on my other subarus and have kind of shrugged it off for now as something to do with the DI.

Actually just went and checked mine again and no chirping but i have heard it multiple times before when it idles.

Mine just started to chirp too. Quite odd. I noticed it at a friends house but when I got home it was much less noisy. I'll check again tomorrow and see what happens. Also, that pulley shouldn't be moving like that. I'm going to check that too and see if mine is doing that as well. (Well, that could be an idler/tensioner pulley, but I doubt they are spring tensioned.)

That's what I was thinking too.

Thats a spring tensioned idler, doing exactly what it is meant to do. Chirping can happen if the tension spring is too soft for the job it is supposed to do. Normally they dont move quite that much on a factory stock motor ......

I don't believe I hear a belt chirping. Not alteast in the video. All I can hear is the high pressure direct injection pump and nozzles.

-Don

The noise is just injectors but the belt pulley Tensioner does seam a bit weak. A bit to much bounce.

Saw the new BMW's on a dyno day and 3 of them had the belts fly off

When I got to work this morning it wasn't chirping. All I heard was the usual tick at an idle. I did check that pulley that the OP was stating seemed loose, and mine does the same thing. The pulley moves back and forth a small amount, along with the bolt, so yes, it is spring tensioned, as others have said.

Thanks for the input guys. I'll have the dealer look at it.

I'll keep you guys posted.

Keep in mind most belts that slip a little will make noise but this should not happen on a new car. Once the belt is heated up and or has dried any condensation on the pulleys the noise goes away. That pulley should not be moving like that at idle. Maybe at high load/rpm but at idle? Whats going to happen when you rev it hard, that thing is going to shake it self apart.

When it was chirping for me, it almost sounded as if it was coming from the injectors, not the belt.

I'm going to see if I can find any other engine videos to see if I can see that pulley moving.

Seemed like DI noise to me

After my commute to work today mine was making the chirping noise again.

Here is a quick video of it.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bmooGfYQxms"]Scion frs idle noise - YouTube[/ame]

I dont have the car but that thing is noisy

In both vids there is a lot of injector noise and I think some of the higher frequencies sound injector related but I also hear another high frequency that sounds off. I'm using ear bud headphones. I hear a high frequency noise that is at a faster tempo than the injectors, it also sounds slightly intermittent (it doesn't maintain exactly the same tempo, which injectors will).

Well I just ran it for 15mins or so, and I didn't hear any chirping, but I noticed that if I let it idle for an extended period of time (say, 15secs+), when I give it gas the rpms will drop to 400-500 then go up. Seems to be an issue with the FR-S.

Mine makes that sound too, not all the time though. I too thought it was normal but I'm starting to think I should take it to the dealer too, to get it checked out.

Mine hasn't made it since the one time last night. A comment on the OP's video said he took it (FR-S) to a Toyota dealer and they said it was fine. :iono:

louder exhaust will solve this problem ;)

Agreed.

That being said, my car makes the same noise occasionally after being driven for a while. It is more frequent than the injectors (slight pulsing, sometimes just a constant high-pitched sound) and sounds very different than the clicking. I've owned two wrx's before, and while I will be the first to say that boxer engines are naturally noisy, this noise doesn't sound familiar. However, I haven't noticed any performance or idling issues.

Here's a vid of mine doing it as well. It seems to be intermediate, since some times it'll do it, and other times it won't. Happened as I was getting back to work after going to the bank and getting lunch.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UK_4uZz-oQo"]BRZ Chirping - YouTube[/ame]

You can also see the idler pulley moving back and forth in the vid too.

I'm with Don. The tensioner pulley is on a spring loaded tensioner so seeing it move is probably not that big of a deal. Maybe compare it to another FA20 engine if you want some extra assurance. But the tick is most certainly DI pump and nozzles. Very typical of newer gas direct injection vehicles. Hell, the Kia Optima Turbo & Hyundai Sonata Turbo have a 2" thick high density foam inside the engine cover to quiet it down as much as possible, but it's still diesel-status.

The other thing that makes youtube sound diagnostics a bit tough is that most smart phones have extremely sensitive microphones for high frequency noises. So for one of us to compare what we hear on a car in person to your video is a tough comparison as well.

Jason Griffith
Engineering Director
Nameless Performance

You can hear the chirping sound in all the videos. It sounds like a cricket. It's higher pitched then the ticking from the injectors.

Turn the A/C on and see if it stops? So hard to tell where its coming from but that higher pitched sound doesn't sound like belt squeal to me at all. Sounds like bearing noise.

It's only happened twice since I've gotten the car. Wouldn't a bad bearing be consistent though?

Well, hard to tell, so I'm not an SAE mechanic nor do I diagnose issues like this on a daily basis, so a Subaru Tech could probably speak a lot further on this than I can. Intuitively speaking, I'd suspect either the tensioner making the noise or the loose tensioner making something else like the free spinning a/c compressor clutch make noise.

I find it VERY hard to believe that multiples of these cars have bad tensioner/ac bearings from the factory. Bearings are one of those items that are pretty much great right out of the box always. Because they're built in such high quantities and because they are a precision item, they are usually quality assurance tested more than say, an object like a bushing or an exhaust.

And also, from my experience, little noisemakers like this are often reacted to by the dealership with 'nope, that's normal.' Case in point is the horrendous wastegate rattle on the Hyundai Sonata Turbo/Kia Optima Turbo. I know exactly where the tolerance slop and design is causing the noise (which translates to a high frequency exhaust buzz when you go full turbo-back on those), but the factory simply declines to address it. There's a good chance this is a similar (annoying but absolutely not a reason for long term concern) issue. If one of you experiences this, turn the a/c on and see if that isolates the issue to the a/c clutch bearing. We could also look at the BRZ here to see how much movement there is at the tensioner at idle and compare. That may be perfectly normal, just not something I've ever stared at before. Plus, at idle the potential for it to oscillate/move as rpm shifts slightly is probably far higher than if you were to mash on the gas and bring it up to a constant rpm. I'll see what ours does when we get the header finished.

Jason Griffith
Engineering Director
Nameless Performance, Inc.

Switching AC on doesnt affect the sound. Reving the engine up even 200 rpm makes it go away but once to a nice low idle you can hear it again.

Doesn't happen all the time, usually when driven for a while and warm. It is exactly how the videos depict, high pitched squeaking whining noise.

I have to look when I leave work but my old G8 used to have a crank pulley that wobbled like crazy. It would cause the belt to squeal. The dealership tried belt dressing, then just tightened the crank pulley once and then just replaced under warranty. Get it checked out. Its warranty so it doesn't cost you anything but a little time.

I'm with Fenton here. Mine behaves the exact same way in the same circumstances.

Here's an update from the dealer:
I took the car in today (6/15), I asked for a mechanic to come and listen. About 7 people show up, about 3 or 4 of which are mechanics. Even the Foreman was there. One of them has a WRX so he was familiar with how noisy boxers can be. He was positive the cricket noise was coming from the Direct Injection system (primarily from the drivers side). He said the tension pulley was behaving normally; the shaking was normal.

Both he and the Foreman suggested I hold off on leaving it at the shop until they do some research with their corporate contact, primarily because they have no other FR-S or BRZ to compare it to. They said they would contact me next week.

That's good news! Did he say if the cricket noise was normal too?

I know there are some issues with idle, and that a camshaft might be at fault.

Thing is, they were on the fence about if the cricket noise was normal or not. They were leaning towards "normal," but just to be safe, they are going to contact Toyota to make sure. DI + Boxer = a plethora of strange sounds it seems.

Thanks for the info! Keep us posted on what they say! :thumbsup:

Mine does the same thing. I was wondering about it also and the only thing i could come up with myself is the DI system.

After driving roughly 30 miles one way twice today, both times when it was at less then ~1000 rpms the chirping would start. It's really quite annoying.

I bet it is the belt tensioner, bad design or defective spring or supplier of spring cheated the manufacturer and used the wrong metals.

Damn thing sounds like a diesel truck from the old days. An exhaust will cover up a little but an louder intake will help allot.

This car will switch between port and direct injection at idle and there is a high pressure fuel pump sitting in the engine bay that could very well make that kind of noise.