Is A/C motor really this loud?!

[jboy210]

UPDATE!

So after a couple of visits to the SC, they finally sent me out with the shop foreman for a drive. He immediately determined that the A/C motor was bad and they replaced it.

It no longer has the wining noise, but boy is it still LOOOUDD!!! I had my car in for service the other day and drove a MS loaner and same thing! When it's hot out and I crank the A/C to eight or nine, that thing sounds like a Cessna. Is this how A/C's work on all electric cars, or just Teslas? I find it utterly unnacceptable for that level of noise and vibration in a car that's supposed to be silent, even worse in a $100,000+ MSRP car.

I'm curious to find out if Mercedes' EQS or the Audi E-Tron's A/Cs are that loud. I have the feeling they're not.

If this is not addressed in the refresh this will be my first and last Tesla for sure.

Jose

You can always turn down the fan speed manually to reduce noise. I never bothered with the X since it got quiet as soon as a started moving 10 mph or more.

On my BMWs, they were quiet on Auto but took 20 minutes to cool the cabin. So I always manually increased fan speed instead of sitting there sweating.

 

[Richbot]

It must be variable speed/load or something because if the car's been sitting outside it's loud as hell in my '21 LR+, but only for the first 10 minutes or so. Pre-cooling the car makes that problem mostly go away from an in-car noise perspective. Not near as inefficient as pre-heating the car. Also seems much louder when the car is stopped; I never hear the deep thrum when it's rolling, maybe it has to work extra hard when there's no air passing over the condenser - on ICE vehicles this is all handled with the Big Ass Fan that pulls like 30amps of 12v that the car needs to keep the engine coolant heat exchanger working right when stopped, from teardowns of older cars I've seen, the x/s main cooling fan is more like a desktop fan and the shroud is pretty small and flat

It sortof cracks me up that Tesla came to market with a fake grille, then was like nah no grille for nobody, DON'T NEED IT, DO YOU EVEN ELECTRIC CAR BRO, then we all encounter issues where additional cooling capacity would be amazing, and the legacy OEM's have all come to the same conclusion, and they're finally just now like.....ehhhh ok I guess you can have better cooling now that Model 3 was released with a pretty obviously superior heat management system, and then got *another* upgrade before Model X/S

 

[Baxterdown]

This is a really interesting conversation. Thanks everyone for sharing your thoughts!

One thing some of you up north and in California must keep in mind is that I am at the doorstep of the inferno (aka South Florida). To give you an example, yesterday it was 91 degrees with 89% humidity and full blast sun. Come August, average temperature is 98 degrees with 95% humidity. For anyone who hasn't lived in Florida, it's BLAZING HOT and MUUUUUGYYYY in the Summer. Sorry @jboy210, there is no such thing as "turn down the speed" down here between April and October. It's max fan speed 24/7 if you want to cool down the cabin.

Still, it baffles me that with so much care that went into bringing these cars to and market nobody though hmmmm, hot and humid weather climates are making the A/C motor run at extreme levels, which is causing an unacceptable amount of sound and vibration in the cabin. We need to fix this.

Elon said a really interesting thing at the S PLAID delivery event last night. Talking about the cabin dimensions he said that they had made all materials much thinner to expand the size of the cabin. He called the cabin something like onion-skin thin. That worries me. Thin materials mean less insulation, which means more noise, which means that A/C motor is going to be even louder in the refreshed cars.

I guess we're gonna have to wait to find out.

Jose

 

[Richbot]

The R value of plastic isn’t great and it’s not a great sound insulator either. They are using laminated glass in the new cars so that’s going to help with heat migration and noise more than a few mm of plastic here and there, and less mass = less to cool down after it heat soaks. If they’ve done active noise cancellation correctly it can probably handle the rest

If they wanted to make a good hot weather car they’d give us back the metal roof or a sunshade

 

[jboy210]

This is a really interesting conversation. Thanks everyone for sharing your thoughts!

One thing some of you up north and in California must keep in mind is that I am at the doorstep of the inferno (aka South Florida). To give you an example, yesterday it was 91 degrees with 89% humidity and full blast sun. Come August, average temperature is 98 degrees with 95% humidity. For anyone who hasn't lived in Florida, it's BLAZING HOT and MUUUUUGYYYY in the Summer. Sorry @jboy210, there is no such thing as "turn down the speed" down here between April and October. It's max fan speed 24/7 if you want to cool down the cabin.

Still, it baffles me that with so much care that went into bringing these cars to and market nobody though hmmmm, hot and humid weather climates are making the A/C motor run at extreme levels, which is causing an unacceptable amount of sound and vibration in the cabin. We need to fix this.

Elon said a really interesting thing at the S PLAID delivery event last night. Talking about the cabin dimensions he said that they had made all materials much thinner to expand the size of the cabin. He called the cabin something like onion-skin thin. That worries me. Thin materials mean less insulation, which means more noise, which means that A/C motor is going to be even louder in the refreshed cars.

I guess we're gonna have to wait to find out.

Jose

That weather is one of the reasons I refuse to visit Florida after April and before November. Have you considered moving?

Another option might be to pre-cool using the phone app.

 

[HyperionMark]

I just put in a service order for my AC compressor as well. (2017 X) Extremely loud when starting up or anytime running excessively. Also feel like my AC overall had some issues here and there with cooling. Could be connected, not sure. (btw, I know the differences in sound between the fan and the compressor because I use the HVAC on manual and turn the AC off everytime I leave the vehicle for a while, I'm a nerd plus I don't want stinky AC like I've had before)
FWIW they already ordered the part for me without seeing the vehicle in person, so they must be seeing something in their data that shows it could be defective.

 

[Need]

I just put in a service order for my AC compressor as well. (2017 X) Extremely loud when starting up or anytime running excessively. Also feel like my AC overall had some issues here and there with cooling. Could be connected, not sure. (btw, I know the differences in sound between the fan and the compressor because I use the HVAC on manual and turn the AC off everytime I leave the vehicle for a while, I'm a nerd plus I don't want stinky AC like I've had before)
FWIW they already ordered the part for me without seeing the vehicle in person, so they must be seeing something in their data that shows it could be defective.

Last year when I did my MCU 2 upgrade for our 2017 MX, I also complained about the AC compressor being very loud. Here is what they wrote on the invoice and they didn't do anything with it.

Concern: Customer states: Car has loud sound when first start and moving slow. Sound seems to be near the front underside of the car. It comes on when the car first started. It seems much louder on hot days so I thought maybe it is from the A/C compressor.
Customer states car has a loud noise when A/C is on. Performed thermal test. Test passed. Normal characteristic on A/C compressor.

Correction: General Diagnosis

Correction: Thermal System Test

 

[HyperionMark]

Last year when I did my MCU 2 upgrade for our 2017 MX, I also complained about the AC compressor being very loud. Here is what they wrote on the invoice and they didn't do anything with it.

Concern: Customer states: Car has loud sound when first start and moving slow. Sound seems to be near the front underside of the car. It comes on when the car first started. It seems much louder on hot days so I thought maybe it is from the A/C compressor.
Customer states car has a loud noise when A/C is on. Performed thermal test. Test passed. Normal characteristic on A/C compressor.

Correction: General Diagnosis

Correction: Thermal System Test

I believe this has to do with service centers where you live getting crushed. I've seen example after example of west coasters getting screwed by the service centers where us in the middle of the country usually have an excellent experience. Not wholly sure why, maybe just the demand forces them to be pickier/scrutinize more.

 

[kavyboy]

My 2015 MS is very loud also. It ramps up like it's some out-of-control experiment in a bad sci-fi movie. As other have stated, it settles down after driving around a while.
I have noticed when walking by stopped cars on crosswalks at traffic light, a lot of ICE cars are just as loud.
Unrelated: I'd love the controls to just be "Keep the inside temperature between X and Y degrees" and then have AC or heat kick on as necessary when we leave that range. I really don't want to be fiddling with the temperature setting because the AC is going atomic trying to get the inside down to 68F when the last time I drove I just wanted the heater to get me up to 68F.

 

[jboy210]

My 2015 MS is very loud also. It ramps up like it's some out-of-control experiment on a bad sci-fi movie. As other have stated, it settles down after driving around a while.
I have noticed when walking by stopped cars on crosswalks at traffic light, a lot of ICE cars are just as loud.
Unrelated: I'd love the controls to just be "Keep the inside temperature between X and Y degrees" and then have AC or heat kick on as necessary when we leave that range. I really don't want to be fiddling with the temperature setting because the AC is going atomic trying to get the inside down to 68F when the last time I drove I just wanted the heater to get me up to 68F.

ICE cars used to have fans radiator/AC fans attached to the engine so the speed the fan speed, and subsequent noise generated, was based on the idle speed of the engine. In more recent cars they have gone to electric fans, just like EVs, that run at a speed determined by the car's cooling system, outside temps and humidity, cabin temp, etc.

 

[RedXowner]

I have owned my Oct 2016 MX since Feb 2020, and I have never heard the AC make any noise at all, inside or outside the car, and I am a nut about unusual noises. I ran mine on speed 11 yesterday and today. No noise other than the sound of air hitting my face. If mine were making any kind of unusual or loud noise, I would know about it. Sorry you are getting the runaround from your SC. Keep after them.

 

[polyphonic54]

I'm curious to find out if Mercedes' EQS or the Audi E-Tron's A/Cs are that loud. I have the feeling they're not.

Aside for the drivetrain Land Rovers more refined than Teslas. In my estimation they are among the quieter vehicles on the road.
I can say confidently that my e-tron AC does not make as much noise as in your videos. That said, I often adjust the fan speed downward to make it quieter. It annoys me too.

 

[mxnym]

This is a really interesting conversation. Thanks everyone for sharing your thoughts!

One thing some of you up north and in California must keep in mind is that I am at the doorstep of the inferno (aka South Florida). To give you an example, yesterday it was 91 degrees with 89% humidity and full blast sun. Come August, average temperature is 98 degrees with 95% humidity. For anyone who hasn't lived in Florida, it's BLAZING HOT and MUUUUUGYYYY in the Summer. Sorry @jboy210, there is no such thing as "turn down the speed" down here between April and October. It's max fan speed 24/7 if you want to cool down the cabin.

Still, it baffles me that with so much care that went into bringing these cars to and market nobody though hmmmm, hot and humid weather climates are making the A/C motor run at extreme levels, which is causing an unacceptable amount of sound and vibration in the cabin. We need to fix this.

Elon said a really interesting thing at the S PLAID delivery event last night. Talking about the cabin dimensions he said that they had made all materials much thinner to expand the size of the cabin. He called the cabin something like onion-skin thin. That worries me. Thin materials mean less insulation, which means more noise, which means that A/C motor is going to be even louder in the refreshed cars.

I guess we're gonna have to wait to find out.

Jose

Have you seen this twitter post (including Elon's reply)? Also, IIRC, there is supposed to be noise cancellation in the new S, but it isn't active yet, that might help a lot for people that aren't sensitive to it. Personally, up until that was announced, I always felt that the lack of active noise cancellation in Tesla's flagship vehicles was a huge oversight.

I just put in a service order for my AC compressor as well. (2017 X) Extremely loud when starting up or anytime running excessively. Also feel like my AC overall had some issues here and there with cooling. Could be connected, not sure. (btw, I know the differences in sound between the fan and the compressor because I use the HVAC on manual and turn the AC off everytime I leave the vehicle for a while, I'm a nerd plus I don't want stinky AC like I've had before)
FWIW they already ordered the part for me without seeing the vehicle in person, so they must be seeing something in their data that shows it could be defective.

It's possible, or they may have ordered the parts for just in case. This would prevent them from having a diagnostic appointment with a separate follow-up parts appointment. Assuming they do loaners, it would also prevent them from being in a position where they have to keep your vehicle on parts hold while you're in a loaner as long as the parts take to show up. Since they're Tesla owned, it's no big deal for them to keep the parts on the shelf or return them if they don't use them.

 

[HyperionMark]

Update on my loud AC compressor:
On a very hot day with lots of interstate driving and Supercharging, it finally gave out. We had to drive the last 2 hours on the highway with all windows down in 95 degree weather. Thankfully the next morning we were taking it in for service and it was obviously fixed free of charge.

 

[Need]

Update on my loud AC compressor:
On a very hot day with lots of interstate driving and Supercharging, it finally gave out. We had to drive the last 2 hours on the highway with all windows down in 95 degree weather. Thankfully the next morning we were taking it in for service and it was obviously fixed free of charge.

So after they replaced it, the fan was not loud anymore? I wonder if the new design is more quiet. Ours is still loud but working just fine and the fan noise is supposed to be "within spec". It really has been that way since we go the car back in 2017. Loud fan on hot days when starting up. From the outside, it sounds like a jet engine ramping up. Once we are inside, can't hear it anymore with the A/C blowing.

 

[HyperionMark]

So after they replaced it, the fan was not loud anymore? I wonder if the new design is more quiet. Ours is still loud but working just fine and the fan noise is supposed to be "within spec". It really has been that way since we go the car back in 2017. Loud fan on hot days when starting up. From the outside, it sounds like a jet engine ramping up. Once we are inside, can't hear it anymore with the A/C blowing.

A jet engine is how I used to describe it as well. Now I'd call it a vacuum cleaner.

 

[Need]

A jet engine is how I used to describe it as well. Now I'd call it a vacuum cleaner.

Maybe we just have to wait for the A/C to break.... We do have the extended warranty so as long as it breaks before end of 2025, it would be free!

 

[kdennis]

UPDATE!

So after a couple of visits to the SC, they finally sent me out with the shop foreman for a drive. He immediately determined that the A/C motor was bad and they replaced it.

It no longer has the wining noise, but boy is it still LOOOUDD!!! I had my car in for service the other day and drove a MS loaner and same thing! When it's hot out and I crank the A/C to eight or nine, that thing sounds like a Cessna. Is this how A/C's work on all electric cars, or just Teslas? I find it utterly unnacceptable for that level of noise and vibration in a car that's supposed to be silent, even worse in a $100,000+ MSRP car.

I'm curious to find out if Mercedes' EQS or the Audi E-Tron's A/Cs are that loud. I have the feeling they're not.

If this is not addressed in the refresh this will be my first and last Tesla for sure.

Jose

I'm having the same exact issue and don't want to go through the loop around... What's the best way to get the SC to fix it without having to visit serval times??

 

[DrComputer]

Just a reminder to everyone, there are several sounds you'll hear when the HVAC system is running in cooling mode. The compressor is a variable speed unit and ramps up and down as cooling demands determine. The compressor makes the "buzzing" sound and can be quite loud. There is also a very large central fan in the front of the Model X that blows air over the condenser. This fan can run at variable speeds and will also be very loud at full speed. When both the condenser fan and compressor are running at full speed, the Model X HVAC system will be VERY loud. This is not an indication of a problem or component failure, but rather by design. Since the HVAC system is used to cool both the occupant cabin and the battery/motors, sometimes the compressor and fans can be loud even if cabin cooling isn't turned on. This is not something new for Tesla or EVs. The compressor and cooling fans on my 2010 Roadster can be just as loud as the Model X.

 

[kdennis]

Just a reminder to everyone, there are several sounds you'll hear when the HVAC system is running in cooling mode. The compressor is a variable speed unit and ramps up and down as cooling demands determine. The compressor makes the "buzzing" sound and can be quite loud. There is also a very large central fan in the front of the Model X that blows air over the condenser. This fan can run at variable speeds and will also be very loud at full speed. When both the condenser fan and compressor are running at full speed, the Model X HVAC system will be VERY loud. This is not an indication of a problem or component failure, but rather by design. Since the HVAC system is used to cool both the occupant cabin and the battery/motors, sometimes the compressor and fans can be loud even if cabin cooling isn't turned on. This is not something new for Tesla or EVs. The compressor and cooling fans on my 2010 Roadster can be just as loud as the Model X.

If this is not a defect, why are there some Model X's that do not have this issue under the same conditions (Example: starting up car on hot day with fan speed at 6)?