My VW Tiguan Has Developed The Weirdest Problem That Sounds Like Coconuts Being Dropped On Its Roof

I think it’s no secret that the relationship I have with my 2010 VW Tiguan, which is my wife’s primary car, has been, um, checkered, at best. I actively like the car, at least when it’s running, because it’s got a pleasant interior and drives well and is a good, not-too-big size, all that. Also, the dash has so many warning lights on it feels like Las Vegas, which always keeps things exciting. Mostly, though, this car has been frustrating as hell with all of the things that have gone wrong, and while that may drain my bank account and frustrate me and torture me with the cavalier attitude so many of this car’s systems have with the concept of “working,” I do have to appreciate the creativity that has been going into some recent issues. Like this most recent one, which I initially thought was caused by squirrels dropping things on the roof. I wish I were kidding.

What makes this problem so mysterious is that, so far, it seems to only happen in one very specific area: my kid’s school bus stop. That bus stop is just a couple of blocks down from my house, down a street, a turn, halfway down that street, and that’s it. My kid walks back from this bus stop every day, but in the mornings, him walking to the bus stop usually meant him missing the bus about, oh, 170% of the time. So, tired of driving him to school, I gave in and started driving him to the stop every morning.

And this is where the problem manifests itself, while we’re sitting in the parked, idling Tiguan at the bus stop. Here’s what happens: everything is fine, and then you hear a loud, booming THWONK. It reverberates throughout the car and somehow sounds like it’s coming from the roof. It sounds like something big and heavy dropped on the roof of the car. At first, I suspected squirrels – my go-to anytime something happens that I need to find blame for – thinking they were dropping acorns or something on the roof. Even if it sounded more like a coconut.

But I never saw any evidence of anything dropped, it wasn’t my kid Otto stamping his feet or punching the roof, it was a complete mystery. This happened over and over, always in that same spot – well, once it also happened in my driveway, but that was pretty much it, every other time the bus stop was the only place the deep, resonant THWONKs showed up.

Eventually, I realized that the THWONKs were coming not from the roof, but from the speakers! And, luckily, this morning it happened again, and I was able to capture the audio! Also, please forgive the pajama pants and bedhead, it was early, so very early:

Hear that? I promise you it’s even louder and more resonant in person. And it really shakes the roof!

Now, as for why this is happening, I think we have some pretty big clues. The first of which is the death of the Tiguan’s head unit, which just recently decided it was tired of all that tedious “functioning” and now is just a black screen that occasionally cycles to the startup screen, then back to black. This is especially a shame since I only realized it can play DVDs about a year ago.

Did I say some pretty big clues? Because that was an exaggeration, I really only have that one. But I think that one is likely enough. Because without a functioning head unit, those speakers don’t really ever have any coherent signal going to them, but I think they’re still pulling their 12V of power, so they’re like your idle hands: the devil will find work for them to do. In this case, the devil may be stray electrical signals of some sort, and the work is just a loud thumping sound?

Now, I realize a bad head unit can certainly cause something like this, but if it was actually just an internal electronic fault causing the speaker thump, wouldn’t it just do it at any time, in any place? Why are these thumps almost exclusive to that one little stretch of road? That’s why I’m wondering if there may be some sort of other RF noise in that area that some of the wiring is picking up, antenna-like, and transferring to the speakers? And if so, can I somehow turn this whole car into a Theremin?

Our publisher Matt asked an interesting question about a possible cause in Slack today:

I know I sorta jumped down his throat there, but that could be a possibility: it’s an RF source that’s very localized and fairly strong. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a dog at the house I’m usually parked in front of, though, but it’s possible the dog is so tired of being zapped by that mysterious invisible fence, the dog just gave up on going outside at all, because fuck that.

But maybe, like that poor electrocuted dog, I’m barking up the wrong tree here? Could there be some other cause? There are no transformers nearby, but there are power lines. I’m sure every house there has wifi and Bluetooth and possibly other devices that do some sort of RF broadcasting. Could it be anything like that? Those signals seem like they’d be a bit low power to cause this, but who the hell knows? And I don’t think it’s the Bluetooth or other RF signals from my phone because, again, if that were the case, it would just happen anywhere.

Right? I’m sort of baffled. If any of you brainiacs out there have some ideas, I’d love to hear them. Or advice for a new head unit to replace this thing, ideally with CarPlay and backup camera input! Because that’d probably just take care of it.

Or, I can just learn to give in to the beat. I feel like I’m already halfway there.