Ear pain/Pressure help

[adjuiceplumdog]

thanks for the post! few questions.

1. did you have the ear pressure/buffetting issues like everyone else? did these fixes resolve the issues?

2. what did you use to adjust the bumpers on the hatch? single sheet of paper? envelope? How tight did you make the fit? to the point where you couldnt remove the sheet at ALL? or remove with some resistance

3. when you say tap on the striker, are you talking about tapping down onto the top of the striker (the horizontal bar part) so that it is a tighter fit into the car? or are you saying tapping on the back of the striker (the vertical bar part) so that the striker slides towards the front of the car?

1.) Yes, big time. It helps. Compared to day 1 its a huge improvement. Considerable even over the last few bumper only adjustments. Resolved NO, sadly.

2.) I have a heavy piece of paper that was a label off something. Its coated with some shiny finish which helps to know when the bumper really grabs it. Its welded tight now.

3.) Exactly. Give it a good few hits after slightly loosening the screws. No matter what I did up top, the whole thing needed to down quite a bit for me. Previous to this i could fit my full index finger in the lid gap to the rear quarter panel. It looked terrible too.

I also plan to try the plumbing fitting idea as well, thanks MY-Y. I ordered the road noise kit from RPM too.

So unfortunate that we need to do this. If you think about what it took to make a quiet and serene vehicle and then mess up something as simple as a deck lid. This has been solved since fast backs in the 60s. @Elon, please help. I'm sure the engineers could solve this before their first cup of coffee on any given day.

 

[PecuniaNonOlet]

I'm sure the engineers could solve this before their first cup of coffee on any given day.

I suspect the prototypes were fine and there is wide variation in the vehicles coming off the line. That takes a different kind of engineering to fix. But it doesn't make sense, at least in the short term, to prioritize production consistency improvements when you're selling vehicles faster than you can make them.

One day, Tesla will be like today's legacy car manufacturers. They will be a slave to the "parts bin," as Sandy Munro calls it - no way to escape their own dated technology. They may even have sleazy salespeople and snake oil upsells like trim coating. But their cars will be consistent coming off the line. No customer modifications required.

 

[Sudsington]

1.) Yes, big time. It helps. Compared to day 1 its a huge improvement. Considerable even over the last few bumper only adjustments. Resolved NO, sadly.

2.) I have a heavy piece of paper that was a label off something. Its coated with some shiny finish which helps to know when the bumper really grabs it. Its welded tight now.

3.) Exactly. Give it a good few hits after slightly loosening the screws. No matter what I did up top, the whole thing needed to down quite a bit for me. Previous to this i could fit my full index finger in the lid gap to the rear quarter panel. It looked terrible too.

I also plan to try the plumbing fitting idea as well, thanks MY-Y. I ordered the road noise kit from RPM too.

So unfortunate that we need to do this. If you think about what it took to make a quiet and serene vehicle and then mess up something as simple as a deck lid. This has been solved since fast backs in the 60s. @Elon, please help. I'm sure the engineers could solve this before their first cup of coffee on any given day.

Do you happen to know what size Torx bit you used to loosen the screw? Not sure I have it in my toolbox, might have to try a flathead or Allen key...

 

[skinsfan]

Data point for everyone:

I adjusted the hatch stoppers, which eliminated the buffeting, but I still had a pretty noticeable ear pressure sensation.

I was preparing to sell the car because It was bothering me and I had run out of solutions.

Then I randomly decided to get my ears cleaned out and low and behold, there were huge pieces of earwax that were clogging up my ear.

After removing the earwax, I am happy to say that my ear pressure issue is pretty much resolved!

 

[Dennisis]

Data point for everyone:

I adjusted the hatch stoppers, which eliminated the buffeting, but I still had a pretty noticeable ear pressure sensation.

I was preparing to sell the car because It was bothering me and I had run out of solutions.

Then I randomly decided to get my ears cleaned out and low and behold, there were huge pieces of earwax that were clogging up my ear.

After removing the earwax, I am happy to say that my ear pressure issue is pretty much resolved!

Sometimes there's just TOO much sharing going on here........ glad you figured out it was operator error in the end....

 

[jsPRE]

Do you happen to know what size Torx bit you used to loosen the screw? Not sure I have it in my toolbox, might have to try a flathead or Allen key...

Torx T45

 

[jsPRE]

1.) Yes, big time. It helps. Compared to day 1 its a huge improvement. Considerable even over the last few bumper only adjustments. Resolved NO, sadly.

2.) I have a heavy piece of paper that was a label off something. Its coated with some shiny finish which helps to know when the bumper really grabs it. Its welded tight now.

3.) Exactly. Give it a good few hits after slightly loosening the screws. No matter what I did up top, the whole thing needed to down quite a bit for me. Previous to this i could fit my full index finger in the lid gap to the rear quarter panel. It looked terrible too.

I also plan to try the plumbing fitting idea as well, thanks MY-Y. I ordered the road noise kit from RPM too.

So unfortunate that we need to do this. If you think about what it took to make a quiet and serene vehicle and then mess up something as simple as a deck lid. This has been solved since fast backs in the 60s. @Elon, please help. I'm sure the engineers could solve this before their first cup of coffee on any given day.

I have tried to lower the hatch catch. It seems to only lower 1 mm at most. Hatch continues to close easily. What am I missing? Need to do something to the hatch mechanism in the hatch, or grind the catch so I can lower? Hoped that there was a sliding nut to adjust the hatch catch but not in my July 2021 MY. Thanks for any thoughts.

 

[MY-Y]

Is your hatch too high, meaning it looks off from the outside or the gasket isn't sealing? If it's the low frequency noise problem, the solution is in the bumpers.

 

[jsPRE]

Is your hatch too high, meaning it looks off from the outside or the gasket isn't sealing? If it's the low frequency noise problem, the solution is in the bumpers.

The hatch was too high when I adjusted the bumpers too far out. Re-adjusted for the third time and made PVC covers for the middle bumpers for stiffening -- now gaps look good, gasket seams to make contact using lotion (maybe not best method), can not pull out a paper and no give in the hood. I think the buffeting is less. Still very boomy even after putting sound dampening on the inside wheel wells behind the trim, on the resonating metal below the trunk covers and in the well after removing the bucket.

Is the only concern about gasket leak for water - if so I am good or do I need a tighter seal for sound?

I may now need to also consider getting the MMP coilovers, new tires and/or if I will do more sound deadening in the outside of the back/front wheel wells. I only have 500 miles as I am avoiding driving due to ear pain/pressure but maybe I should wait for the tires to break in more. I keep the tries at 40-41 and get warnings that my tire pressure is too low.

I like the car in all ways except for this. I have used it once for a camping trip 80 miles away in the cascades and it pulled the tear drop camper much better that our Subaru Outback. With the Outback I need to go up the mountain at 45 mph in places but only slowed down in the Y for ranges reasons, it pulled as if there was nothing there.

 

[jsPRE]

My wife and I were experiencing ear pain in my Model Y. It was like that ear pain feeling we get when an airplane is going in for landing. It made the car a miserable ride and I was starting to think I made a big mistake getting one! However, I solved the problem by removing the hitch cover and leaving it off. I just put a rubber cover over the hitch and leave it open. No more ear pain since!

Maybe you could ask Tesla to remove the hitch cover and then take it for a test drive? Have some one sit in the car and turn the AC on max with the hitch over off, then put your hand over it! It will feel like just like putting your hand over an AC vent. My theory is the air in the cabin has no where to go! Most cars the bottom is open so the rear vents in the back have no problem letting air out, but with the Model Y it is covered with that back bottom plastic piece.

Air can escape from the rear vents in the side behind the rear trunk time panels, there is also a hole on the top of the rear trunk trim panels. This though is a good point. I did not cover the vents when applying sound proofing but maybe the volume in there decreases air movement.

 

[cab]

After many trials and experimentation, I've found a fix for this problem. See: Easy and effective low frequency fix

I actually solved (as much as it can be solved) this same issue on my S a few years ago with (essentially) the same method. I ultimately determined the durometer (hardness) of the rubber adjusters will still allowing hatch movement and making the hatch a big speaker - no matter how tight it is. It only take a TINY bit of movement and you get those nasty pressure pulses.

The root issue is the car simply lets in too much vibration, but that is really hard to solve, so I did this bandaid to address the movement of the hatch. In my case, I tried the PVC stuff but did it instead of the rubber. That let too much high frequency vibration in (as you would expect) - sort of like a solid bushing. I ultimately ended up replacing the two rubber upper adjusters with higher durometer (firmer) rubber dowel that I cut to length to fit in the same spot. That ultimately did the trick enough that I didn't sell the car (which I was going to have to do).

Oh and I also tried adjusting the hatch adjuster 1.3 million times, sounded deadened the hatch area, adjusted the latch, dropped to 19" rims, blah, blah, blah...before I did the dowels.....but it was the dowels that did the trick.

I THINK the rubber adjusters on the Y are firmer already than the S so you may have to do the even firmer PVC as MY-Y mentions to get the same results...glad to hear (no pun intended) a similar fix works here.

See pic 78 in this thread:

Pressure Buffeting - Has anyone experienced it?

 

[coselectric]

I haven't posted to this thread in about 5 or 6 months, but I just wanted to follow up and add that the subsonic boominess while going over road bumps/cracks in my Model Y seems to have decreased substantially over time since the car was new. That's aside from getting the liftgate stops adjusted as well as possible with the famous "envelope" method right after we got the vehicle. I'm pretty sure the further reduction in boominess is not just me getting used to it, but I don't have a scientific comparison of how it was back then versus now. I wonder if the noise has reduced because either the tire pressure has reduced over time (last I checked they were sitting at about 40 psi) or possibly the suspension breaking in. In any case, I do still hear some very minor subsonic booming when going over bumps, but I feel that the vehicle is actually a lot quieter now than my 2018 Model 3. That is especially true for high frequency wind noise which may be due to the double paned windows in the Model Y.

 

[MyEarHurts]

The boom does go down after your shocks break it which I’ve noticed too. To remind everyone of the data point, I installed MPP coil overs, sound deadened the wheel wells outside and inside with double the amount of sound deadening, the hatch, the trunk box and the boominess was still there, not as bad but enough that I sold the car. I am glad someone found the solution. As for MPP coil overs, yes they rode better but the boominess was still there at times, I always worried that if one of the shocks started leaking in the future, would I be able to get a single replacement.

 

[polyphonic54]

Two new papers on Body Boom noise and ear pressure in (electric) vehicles:

Importance of Vehicle Body Elements and Rear Axle Elements for Describing Road Booming Noise​

Describing Road Booming Noise with a Hybrid Simulation Model Using a Time Segmentation of the Excitation Load Approach​

 

[polyphonic54]

Has anyone found relief by completely blocking off the rear storage area, as if it were a sedan?

 

[polyphonic54]

Looks like this may also be a problem with the Taycan Cross Turismo. Two owners are complaining about a buffetting noise (with windows up) and ear pressure.

 

[TSMR]

2021 Model Y (May build). It seems some have a minor issue here others are more serious. Mine was the later. After multiple sessions adjusting bumpers, i took some additional corrective actions today which had positive results.

1.) I adjusted the top hinge to be slightly lower then the roof glass, but most importantly even between the 2 sides. From the factory it was 3/8 to 1/2 of an inch different. One was quite low and one was quite high. This led the lid to be not aligned side to side by the time it got to the bottom.
2.) I added little felt pads to the trim side of the bumper. This raised the pad up a 1/4 inch which give added rigidity to the bumper. Less rubber bumper exposed outside of the plastic collar. The collar gives it strength.
3.) At the advice of the SC, I moved the striker down a bit. I had to remove the lower trim, loosen the 2 torx screws and tap on the striker until it moved 3-4mm.
4.) Completed the bumper adjustment again as seen in the video. Start with the uppers move to the lowers. Check the uppers again once you do the lowers. If you put too much pressure on the lower, the upper will gap again, and IMO the uppers are more important.

Now the gap is perfectly aligned and its MUCH closer together. When i push on the decklid or "thump" it with my had it moves only a fraction of a MM vs multiple MMs previously. Its not as rock solid as my BMW with a very similar design, but vastly improved.

I have a similar problem with uneven top hinges. My left hinge is much lower. After adjusting the middle hatch bumpers for equal pressure the entire hatch sits very low on the left side, and high on the right side, Can you please describe how you did the top hinge adjustment? I have not been able to find that anywhere.

 

[ilovecoffee]

My Y (July or August build), has this issue. It's in for service for trunk alignment amongst other things identified at delivery.

One of those things was my audio system not working on delivery so I had about a week of listening to all the noises of the car. I couldn't figure out why I had a massive headache from my commute after the first 2 days until I realized this booming sensation. Using Spectroid on Android, it was off the charts in the 30hz range. Adjusting the stoppers helped but not much.

If service can't eliminate the issue (which I feel might be the case), I will be embarking on a mission to make rigid caps like @MY-Y has made but with my 3D Printer using PETG plastic (very rigid). This way I can design down to the millimeter. In that instance, I will share my design so others could print the same.

 

[oneofmany]

I have the same buffeting noise and ear pressure issue. How do you adjust the rear hatch stoppers? I cannot adjust them like the 2 stoppers on the sides. What kind of tool do I need?

 

[MY-Y]

I have the same buffeting noise and ear pressure issue. How do you adjust the rear hatch stoppers? I cannot adjust them like the 2 stoppers on the sides. What kind of tool do I need?

You just grab them with your hand and unscrew them.