intermittent motor whine

[golfpilot]

Happened on Friday
Happened again today.

Ideas? service appointment next week but I'm sure it will be an issue if they can't duplicate it.

 

[SammichLover]

Do you get a sense it is the front motor? If the rear seats are down it is pretty normal for me to hear that exact pitch from the rear.

I've on very rare occasions noticed that sound from what I think in the front motor. Not sure it is the same volume, though? It has to be pretty quiet.

Tesla seems to have, and reportedly has, designed in active noise defeat on the drive units. But it isn't perfect and the imperfections vary unit to unit. For example my front drive unit "beeps" at exactly 82 mph. Every time head up or down through that point. Every time.

 

[golfpilot]

Do you get a sense it is the front motor? If the rear seats are down it is pretty normal for me to hear that exact pitch from the rear.

I've on very rare occasions noticed that sound from what I think in the front motor. Not sure it is the same volume, though? It has to be pretty quiet.

Tesla seems to have, and reportedly has, designed in active noise defeat on the drive units. But it isn't perfect and the imperfections vary unit to unit. For example my front drive unit "beeps" at exactly 82 mph. Every time head up or down through that point. Every time.

It’s mostly noticeable at low speeds. I can’t ifenti where exactly it’s coking from but the noise is throttled by the accelerator.

First time I heard it was at a little over 17k Miles. Left the car for 30 minutes and it was gone. Then it happened again today 2-300 miles later

 

[jjrandorin]

Happened on Friday
Happened again today.

Ideas? service appointment next week but I'm sure it will be an issue if they can't duplicate it.

Normal, according to the head service tech I asked at my appointment. My car makes the same noise under "spirited" acceleration.. from the front. I was told that its because the front motor is different from the back.

I also heard basically the same noise in the dual motor model S they gave me for a loaner while they were looking at my car for that and the black screen reboot issue.

After hearing it in another new Non model 3 tesla, I believed them.

 

[NJM3]

I hear it sometimes from the rear of my rwd model 3, usually when accelerating hard or during regen. I like it, sounds like a spaceship. Pretty sure it’s normal, I had the same type of noise in my bmw i3.

 

[SciFriGuy]

The whine happens on slow acceleration up to about 40 mph in my AWD. It may still be there but road noise is loud enough to cover it. I have about 2500 miles on mine and up until about 500 miles ago, the whine would go away around 20 mph. But now continues up to around 35-40. A first I thought "cool, sounds like the Jetsons" but now that the whine continues up to hihger mph, I'm a bit concerned. Should I be?

 

[golfpilot]

I have figured out how to make the whine in the video happen on demand now. When I was first hearing the whine it was during update 7.11. That update was only sent out to a handful of Teslas in the bay area and included battery preheat on the way to the charger and access to V3 charging. The next update was a mainstream one and I didn't hear that noise for 8k miles until yesterday, first time using a supercharging since the mainstream preheat update. Put the supercharger into my nav system and the whine started. clicked a location just off of the supercharger and it went away.

 

[SammichLover]

I have figured out how to make the whine in the video happen on demand now. When I was first hearing the whine it was during update 7.11. That update was only sent out to a handful of Teslas in the bay area and included battery preheat on the way to the charger and access to V3 charging. The next update was a mainstream one and I didn't hear that noise for 8k miles until yesterday, first time using a supercharging since the mainstream preheat update. Put the supercharger into my nav system and the whine started. clicked a location just off of the supercharger and it went away.

Ah, so it is happening when the system is putting the motor into inefficient mode, to create excess heat to warm the battery. In that case it'll be running more current that can increase sub-audible sounds to the point you can hear them (they overcome the noise-cancelation stuff Tesla has designed, for example), so that makes a lot of sense.

Another possibility is the noise being different is because the running the coolant is being looped differently. There's this 4-way valve that routes the coolant dependent on where the system is trying to move heat from and too.

 

[golfpilot]

Ah, so it is happening when the system is putting the motor into inefficient mode, to create excess heat to warm the battery. In that case it'll be running more current that can increase sub-audible sounds to the point you can hear them (they overcome the noise-cancelation stuff Tesla has designed, for example), so that makes a lot of sense.

Another possibility is the noise being different is because the running the coolant is being looped differently. There's this 4-way valve that routes the coolant dependent on where the system is trying to move heat from and too.

What is funny is that the sound might be the same but because I know what causes it and can recreate on demand, I don't mind it at all.

 

[SammichLover]

What is funny is that the sound might be the same but because I know what causes it and can recreate on demand, I don't mind it at all.

I get that.