Air leak / tea-kettle noise at highway speeds

[BobV]

My P85D (P64168) built December 2014 has been making a tea-kettle noise at highway speeds for the past several weeks, but I'm having trouble pinning down exactly where it's coming from. The car was in the Tyson's Corner service center this past week for the LTE upgrade (huge improvement in coverage) and to have this and another noise issue checked out (clicking from the rear seat area that started after the next-gen seats were finally installed). Neither of the noise issues were resolved; there was some kind of unexplained (to me, anyway) snafu requiring that the main battery pack be replaced.

You can hear the whistle at about the 10-second mark in this video: Photo by Bob Vawter - Google Photos It's buried in the road noise (and probably the phone's noise-cancellation) so I have to turn up my speakers a bit for it to be audible.

I'm wondering if anyone has experienced this before and/or has any ideas on being able to resolve it myself before I try scheduling another service appointment; it's consistent and lough enough to be disruptive.

What I know:

- It starts above 60mph and gets more intense at higher speeds.
- The seals around the panoramic roof look clean and in good shape, but I don't have anything to compare it to.
- From the driver's seat, it sounds like it's above and to the right.
- From the passenger's seat, it sounds like it's above and to the left.
- From the right-rear seat, it only sounds like it's from in front.
- The radio is off.
- The A/C compressor is turned off.
- If I put the hvac into recirculation mode, the sound becomes fainter or diminishes entirely, regardless of fan speed.
- When the hvac is in fresh-air mode, manually adjusting the fan speed will affect the intensity of the whistling.
- Sometimes opening and closing the panoramic roof will cause the sound to stop or start, but it's been much more consistent in the past week.
- It seems to happen more in the mornings and not after the car has baked in the sun at work, which could be a thermal-expansion issue or just the auto-hvac settings.

Thank you for any thoughts on the matter.

 

[jerry33]

Car noises are really tricky to find because they often seem to come from someplace other than the actual origin. My suggestion is to get a set of microphones made to find car noise. Place them in various areas to narrow down the search area.

 

[hipringles]

unrelated, but what is your center console?

 

[ecarfan]

Sounds like a leaking sunroof seal.

 

[AmpedRealtor]

I had the same noise in my 2013 P85. The source of the noise was the black plastic appliqué between the front of the sunroof and the top of the windshield. There was a service bulletin at the time involving adding brackets to the underside of the appliqué to pull it down and create a better seal. I have not had the issue since it was fixed over a year ago.

 

[dtank63]

Also would like to have info on your center console, looks great!

Can't ID the noise, sorry, noises are hard even when you hear them first hand

 

[jlucero]

your situation sounds similar to mine. took delivery of my car 3 weeks ago, and noise only present on highway. i think i localized my problem to the back passenger window not sealing right. when i washed car, also noticed some leaking of water into the interior the car on that window. havent had time to take it in yet to the Tesla center.

 

[Johan]

Sunroof or one of the small triangle windows in front.

 

[mknox]

Sounds like a leaking sunroof seal.

Yep. I only get it when it's significantly below freezing outside and assume it's some rubber seal that shrinks "just enough" to let the air in. I get that exact same "tea kettle" whistle from it. Problem is, the SC has never been able to verify it because it's always just warm enough that it goes away. It happens so infrequently, and I have no water leaks or anything so I just live with it.

 

[BobV]

Just a quick update: I spoke with the service coordinator at Tysons and have an appointment for the 23rd. I think I'll point the browser at either this forum thread or something else to make sure whichever technician looks at the car has the recipe to recreate the whistle.

Also, for those that asked, that's Tesla's center console.

 

[lynnpt2001]

My P85D (P64168) built December 2014 has been making a tea-kettle noise at highway speeds for the past several weeks, but I'm having trouble pinning down exactly where it's coming from. The car was in the Tyson's Corner service center this past week for the LTE upgrade (huge improvement in coverage) and to have this and another noise issue checked out (clicking from the rear seat area that started after the next-gen seats were finally installed). Neither of the noise issues were resolved; there was some kind of unexplained (to me, anyway) snafu requiring that the main battery pack be replaced.

You can hear the whistle at about the 10-second mark in this video: Photo by Bob Vawter - Google Photos It's buried in the road noise (and probably the phone's noise-cancellation) so I have to turn up my speakers a bit for it to be audible.

I'm wondering if anyone has experienced this before and/or has any ideas on being able to resolve it myself before I try scheduling another service appointment; it's consistent and lough enough to be disruptive.

What I know:

- It starts above 60mph and gets more intense at higher speeds.
- The seals around the panoramic roof look clean and in good shape, but I don't have anything to compare it to.
- From the driver's seat, it sounds like it's above and to the right.
- From the passenger's seat, it sounds like it's above and to the left.
- From the right-rear seat, it only sounds like it's from in front.
- The radio is off.
- The A/C compressor is turned off.
- If I put the hvac into recirculation mode, the sound becomes fainter or diminishes entirely, regardless of fan speed.
- When the hvac is in fresh-air mode, manually adjusting the fan speed will affect the intensity of the whistling.
- Sometimes opening and closing the panoramic roof will cause the sound to stop or start, but it's been much more consistent in the past week.
- It seems to happen more in the mornings and not after the car has baked in the sun at work, which could be a thermal-expansion issue or just the auto-hvac settings.

Thank you for any thoughts on the matter.

I have another car that had the same type of issue. Here is something that worked for me. Turn on the heating / ac fan with the air in fresh air mode, not recycle mode, that forces outside air into the car forcibly. Then put soapy water all over the car , the leak will blow bubbles where is it leaking. Good Luck

 

[Andyw2100]

My P85D (P64168) built December 2014 has been making a tea-kettle noise at highway speeds for the past several weeks, but I'm having trouble pinning down exactly where it's coming from. The car was in the Tyson's Corner service center this past week for the LTE upgrade (huge improvement in coverage) and to have this and another noise issue checked out (clicking from the rear seat area that started after the next-gen seats were finally installed). Neither of the noise issues were resolved;

In addition to what everyone here has suggested, you might have them check the tightness of the seals on the rear hatch. There are several points where this can be adjusted very easily.

As for the clicking noise from the back seat, I had something like this for a while, and it was driving me nuts. I think I eventually determined that it was one of the seat belt buckles positioned oddly, clicking against something once in a while. See if moving them around solves it. If you need a way to check, temporarily wrap them in little towels or something, if you can't easily reposition them into non-clicking positions. If the clicking goes away when they are wrapped in towels, you'll just have to work on finding positions where they don't click.

Good luck.

 

[Oyvind.H]

I had whsitling noise from the pano-roof in 120km/h+. Actually think the sound was there since the car was new. I asked Tesla service to apply SB13-24-005 (service bulletin). When it came back from this service the roof was silent.

 

[Sogorman]

I had whsitling noise from the pano-roof in 120km/h+. Actually think the sound was there since the car was new. I asked Tesla service to apply SB13-24-005 (service bulletin). When it came back from this service the roof was silent.

Do you have any more information on SB13-24-005? I can't find any information listed for it on the forum.

 

[supratachophobia]

My P85D (P64168) built December 2014 has been making a tea-kettle noise at highway speeds for the past several weeks, but I'm having trouble pinning down exactly where it's coming from. The car was in the Tyson's Corner service center this past week for the LTE upgrade (huge improvement in coverage) and to have this and another noise issue checked out (clicking from the rear seat area that started after the next-gen seats were finally installed). Neither of the noise issues were resolved; there was some kind of unexplained (to me, anyway) snafu requiring that the main battery pack be replaced.

You can hear the whistle at about the 10-second mark in this video: Photo by Bob Vawter - Google Photos It's buried in the road noise (and probably the phone's noise-cancellation) so I have to turn up my speakers a bit for it to be audible.

I'm wondering if anyone has experienced this before and/or has any ideas on being able to resolve it myself before I try scheduling another service appointment; it's consistent and lough enough to be disruptive.

What I know:

- It starts above 60mph and gets more intense at higher speeds.
- The seals around the panoramic roof look clean and in good shape, but I don't have anything to compare it to.
- From the driver's seat, it sounds like it's above and to the right.
- From the passenger's seat, it sounds like it's above and to the left.
- From the right-rear seat, it only sounds like it's from in front.
- The radio is off.
- The A/C compressor is turned off.
- If I put the hvac into recirculation mode, the sound becomes fainter or diminishes entirely, regardless of fan speed.
- When the hvac is in fresh-air mode, manually adjusting the fan speed will affect the intensity of the whistling.
- Sometimes opening and closing the panoramic roof will cause the sound to stop or start, but it's been much more consistent in the past week.
- It seems to happen more in the mornings and not after the car has baked in the sun at work, which could be a thermal-expansion issue or just the auto-hvac settings.

Thank you for any thoughts on the matter.

Triangle corner window of driver/passenger side? To try and make louder, open opposite window from triangle glass you want to put your ear to. Passenger preferred.

 

[Oyvind.H]

Do you have any more information on SB13-24-005? I can't find any information listed for it on the forum.

There was a description of it on the Norwegian ev forum, so I should be able to track it down. The fix includes reassembling the large plastic square in front of the glass part of the roof. Stiffening it or something so it doesn't bend from wind and create wind noise.

 

[Ingineer]

SB-13-24-006 is the USA version. SB-13-24-005 is EU spec only. I too need this when I can get into service.

 

[BobV]

The service manager called me back to say that they're pulling the car apart to try to track down both the whistling and clicking noises and have escalated the case to engineering. If I understood correctly, they've run through the existing service bulletins with no luck so far. Meanwhile, the P85+ loaner isn't too shabby. Once they track the problems down, I'll ask about the root causes and update this thread.

 

[BobV]

The service center fixed the whistling noise by adjusting the seal on the moving glass portion of the roof and also fixed a bunch of other loose panel and wiring clips from the next-gen seat installation.