I initially thought this was a new issue but now think it might have always been present, and exacerbated now by the warm weather. In short, it seems like whenever I have the climate control on, there is a constant but random 'creaking' sound coming from all over the dashboard. Think - dropping an ice cube in a warm drink, or maybe even static electricity. It's much more apparent when it's warm out, the actual fan speed doesn't seem to matter much. The moment I turn the air off though, it stops completely.

I've tried a few things to narrow it down to an AC 'issue':

1. Drive with the air on in the morning when it's cooler. The car is also garage kept so it's much cooler inside the car to begin with. No issues,
2. Drive with the air on in the afternoon when the car is sitting in the sun for ~8hrs. This is when it's at it's worst, probably hear sounds 3-5 times a minute.
3. Turning the air off in the afternoon after about 30 minutes of having the air on. Sounds are gone.
4. Changing the direction of the air. That didn't seem to help.

Tomorrow I plan on testing with the air on but the AC is off.

I do plan on taking it to the dealer to look at (along with a handful of other things) but it probably won't be for a month or so before I can make the trip there.

Has anyone experienced something like this before, or have any ideas if this is something I can check on myself?

 

Is this a rhythmic sound? Is the interval of the noise a rhythmic cadence, or is it random?

 

It's random, and to be fair it's not nearly as bad now as it was when I originally made this post. I'm wondering if it was just the plastics 'settling', the sounds all seemed to originate from all the front vents. The dealer couldn't replicate the issue, and the loaner they gave me made similar sounds with the AC on, so I'm much less concerned given it doesn't appear unique to my car.

 

I understand… I had a similar problem but it was a rhythmic cadence with the noise and it turned out to be the hot/cold mixing flap stepper motor in the lower dashboard area.

 

Was it something like this? I also get this occasionally . It's really hard to hear on computer speakers for some reason