HACK FIX: Noise from loose wheel well liner, at high speed

[ℬête Noire]

Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer,
“Sir,” said I, “or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore;
But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping,
And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door,
That I scarce was sure I heard you”—here I opened wide the door;—
Darkness there and nothing more.

My wheel wells had been vexing me for some time. It took a while to figure out where the noise was coming from. I thought A-pillar, then dash behind the steering wheel. One of the difficulties with finding the noise is that to start with it was only happening at high speeds (50mph and up), only later could I reproduce at lower speeds. This is unusual for a rattle. It took a Ranger to track it down, clever fellow. My liner is NOT fastened to the back of wheel well. The hole in the liner is there but the bolt welded to the well isn't there, just a flat spot where it would be.

The Ranger couldn't find anything in his database so he did a hack fix with a zip tie, which indeed stopped the noise. Two issues though, one is that I then later noticed the noise happening in the passenger wheel well, too. But the bigger issue is that within about 1000-1500 miles the tie wrap wore and broke, with the tapping returning.

Enter Clever Ranger #2, who I'm pretty sure has this one licked now (pending Tesla HQ issuing a new liner design). He wrapped felt backed tape (from a roughly 4" wide roll of it) on the backside of the liner, towards the fender edge in two places. Towards the door and then at the top of the wheel well. Here's a picture of where it went toward the door (pardon the dirt, I drove through some mud):



The felt is dark black, so it's the very dark strip next to the outside of the liner. It's mostly on the backside but it's wrapped around the edge of the liner to keep the edge of the liner form tapping to. It tappers out towards that hole near the bottom of the liner, and the wrap around extends up past the top of the photo. In total about 8-9" of tape was applied here.

On the top it was about 6" at the very top of the well arch. On the top he applied it the the metal of the wheel well, rather than the liner itself as was done at the backside towards the door.

-- -- --

I'd like to thank wrap it up with a shout out to the two Rangers that helped me out here and came up with the solution.

 

[ngogas]

This liner was casing rattling at high speed? Never notice the noise. Maybe cause I listen to music when I’m crushing?

 

[ℬête Noire]

This liner was casing rattling at high speed? Never notice the noise. Maybe cause I listen to music when I’m crushing?

That indeed could be it, you could turn the music up over this.

However not all Model 3s have the liner floating like this. There is a variation that has a bolt welded to the steel extruding in, at roughly 2 o'clock on the driver's side, and a poly fastener used to tie down the liner there. On mine, and others, the hole in the liner is there but the metal behind is a flat circle. It seems to be something that got cut from production.

I'm surprised more people don't report this, not sure what it's not prevalent. Maybe it's only become a issue for me because road water, this being Houston so we get a lot of water on the road at times, pushed it around and stretched it somehow? Or maybe I'm just listening harder and most people are just used to noise? It really does sound allot like something rattling around inside the cabin and people are just living with it.

Or something else? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

P.S. A known issue with the Aeros is hitting deep enough standing water will pop them right off. The water gets squirted from inside to outward creating enough hydraulic pressure to pop the clips. We've had local people that lost more than one of them in a single drive on very raining days. So there's a fair amount of pressure that can happen in places in those wheel wells.

 

[ℬête Noire]

Oops, looks like the rear liners probably rattle, too, but I only hear it clearly when the seats are down. I'd never driven with the seats down before but I'd forgotten to put them back up after unloading the college kid's stuff and was tight on time today when I left home so didn't bother. Almost immediately noticed the exact same percussive tap.

This makes a lot of sense, as inspecting them manually they seemed to have similar tap points and I was sorta surprised I didn't hear them clearly before. Will probably tape them up myself, and report back when done to confirm.

Also, you hear a LOT more road noise back there with the seats down, and the drive unit whine from the rear becomes pervasive. It sounds very open to the world, with loose stones clattering around as such.

 

[Solor]

So was your fix to not attach the liner with anything thru the hole, but to pad the area with felt so that the noise is not heard? I am not sure that should be a long term fix as it seems the applied felt/tape could trap moisture and allow a place for corrosion to start.

 

[ℬête Noire]

So was your fix to not attach the liner with anything thru the hole, but to pad the area with felt so that the noise is not heard? I am not sure that should be a long term fix as it seems the applied felt/tape could trap moisture and allow a place for corrosion to start.

Good point.

I'm not concerned about the tape on metal, as it has a rather thick silicon-like layer on the adhesive side. No expectation of water getting in under there. Where the tape is on the liner is more of a real concern there, I think. I'm actually a little more concerned about grit getting trapped in it than moisture, turning it into sandpaper, and if I was in an area where there was road salting that'd also be a huge concern. The thing is that the liner isn't normally resting on the metal at these points, thus the tapping when in motion as it flexes and strikes the metal.

Still, I was thinking about trying to find some wide silicon "rescue tape" and using that instead. Normally a bit pricy option but I need to order a roll anyway for the water main into my house (my curb water meter valve won't fully shut off so I can't get a proper cure time for a traditional fix on the PVC pipe). Unfortunately I've never used it before, so it's not clear to me if I'd be able to get it to grip on a negative curve like the inside of a wheel well, without wrapping onto itself?

 

[Glamisduner]

Can you drill a hole and add a clip?

My 3 is noisy too. I think something in the rear trunk where the plastic is, is lose or not properly attached. Maybe from them adjusting it so much to get it lined up when it was in service? I don't remember hearing it before but it sounds like a much cheaper car than it is. It has less than 2k miles on it too.

 

[ℬête Noire]

Can you drill a hole and add a clip?

Ranger #2 had initially brought this up when brainstorming as "we could try doing this buuuuttt..." it probably wouldn't be a good idea due to rusting potential after drilling into the body like that. That's when he suggested trying the tape. I actually asked him expressly about moisture retention and he said no, that he felt it shouldn't be an issue with the product.

P.S. BTW as an aside at least some of these Tesla Rangers and such are used to dealing with PITA customers and finicky vehicle demands. I've heard the before, that they've been poached from MB, BMW, and such. When we were talking while I was doing the test drive to confirm issue fixed, it came up that Ranger #2's prior service repair job was on exotics.

 

[ℬête Noire]

My 3 is noisy too. I think something in the rear trunk where the plastic is, is lose or not properly attached. Maybe from them adjusting it so much to get it lined up when it was in service? I don't remember hearing it before but it sounds like a much cheaper car than it is. It has less than 2k miles on it too.

BTW to be clear, I'm not convinced that my Model 3 is particularly noisy. In fact I expect I'm hearing these things because on balance its so darn quiet. Being able to pick out pebbles scattering on the pavement behind me? Yesterday I was driving home past a creek area and I noticed the frogs croaking off into the trees. This was at about 50mph, windows rolled up. Admittedly on asphalt that's less than a month old, so that likely helped a lot, but still that's a whole lot of quietness going on.

 

[djsteviez]

Can you drill a hole and add a clip?

My 3 is noisy too. I think something in the rear trunk where the plastic is, is lose or not properly attached. Maybe from them adjusting it so much to get it lined up when it was in service? I don't remember hearing it before but it sounds like a much cheaper car than it is. It has less than 2k miles on it too.

Did you ever find the issue for this? Sounds like what I have.