What is this high pitched cricket like noise?

[ev_go123]

Oh wow they think it's the drive unit....again. Yeah I have to agree with you, seems very improbable that the same issue would occur in the factory version and the replacement. Unless all of the motors they're making have that issue now. That would be bad.

Also I wonder what they mean exactly by "burnt out bearing". I'd think by the time a bearing gets too hot that it would visibly be burned, the whole assembly have catastrophically failed or at least be making tons of noise. Maybe they just mean the bearing has failed and didn't actually get hot at all. But then I wonder how they could tell it was defective.

I amazed at how your SC seems to be jumping through hoops to get this fixed for you. Is that because they're so afraid of having to do a buy back? Did you do anything special to request that?

I actually just got my car "fixed' by the SC today too and they were incredibly unhelpful:
"Upon initial inspection the technician test drove to verify the concern and the technician was unable to reproduces any abnormal noises at this time. The technician was hearing noises which were coming from the front drive unit which is normal and expected conditions for normal operations."

Interesting that they also though the noise was coming from the front drive unit. But I have to wonder if they were just hearing some other noise (like the inverter whine).

For what it's worth, on the way back from the SC, the noise was present, but super super quiet. If that was all the techs where hearing, I could understand they would think there was nothing wrong. Frustrating when these things are intermittent.

 

[Benito1283]

@ev_go123 that's too bad about your visit. Hopefully one of us gets it figured out and you can go to them with something concrete. If this new front DU fixes it for me, I wonder if you could ask them to do remote diagnostics, even if you had to pay. Then if they find a bearing failure they would have to replace it under warranty. The MY and M3 do share the same front motor.

My SC has always been pretty good about wanting to fix things. Probably just luck. But before my last visit I did go in, spoke to several different people and ultimately the sales & delivery manager and explained the whole saga. I brought up some lemon law facts like # of attempts to fix, total time in the shop, and what "my attorney advised me." Then I had his attention. I'm a gentle guy but can be scary when I'm pissed . He said if it qualified for lemon law they would just do a buyback and avoid the hassle for both parties. (I'm sure they don't want that on their books.) That's when he said "let us have one more shot at fixing it before going down that route."

Bottom line - the car is 4 months old and under warranty. They need to fix it. I've had it. There's no way they can try to backtrack at this point.

 

[fignacious]

Couple things to say...

@Benito1283 - props to your SC for being so awesome to work with. I know you might not think that, but the fact that they're digging so much and have provided you with a loaner is above and beyond my closest (2 hrs) SC. That said, I would also be very surprised (and concerned) if your replacement motor had the same issue as the original, and a burnt bearing seems like a big deal. If that is the case, I hope Tesla is going to dig further and do a recall... I'm also very curious about this remote diagnosis. If they can detect a bearing failure that way, I'd love to figure out how to get that done on my car, even if I do have to pay for the initial diagnosis.

@ev_go123 - welcome to the club! Same experience at my SC, so at this point I'm living with it until it causes a bigger issue or there's a recall. I can't keep taking days off work and driving all the way up there to be told everything is fine.

 

[Benito1283]

I totally recognize how good my SC has been. My frustration with their diagnosis and this issue is separate from that.

I agree about the remote diagnosis. In theory, maybe you wouldn't even need to go to the SC to have it done. Are they really able to figure out something like this remotely? If so, why don't they do it more often? And why isn't an issue like this monitored such that it would alert you when you had a failure that warrants a full replacement of the drive unit?

 

[fignacious]

Would you mind probing them a bit and ask if this is something that can be remote diagnosed because you know of others who would like to request that and not have to visit a SC for the 3rd + time? If they say so, it's definitely something I'll reach out to my SC to ask if they can do..

 

[Benito1283]

Would you mind probing them a bit and ask if this is something that can be remote diagnosed because you know of others who would like to request that and not have to visit a SC for the 3rd + time? If they say so, it's definitely something I'll reach out to my SC to ask if they can do..

I definitely will! Maybe your SC could tell you as well? Or even main Tesla #.

 

[fignacious]

I definitely will! Maybe your SC could tell you as well? Or even main Tesla #.

Yep I am reaching out to mine in the app as well, but yours seems a lot better at communicating this type of information so anything additional I can get through you from them is clutch!

 

[andrlilj]

I definitely will! Maybe your SC could tell you as well? Or even main Tesla #.

Any news on your car?
I have a SC appointment and I’m adding a link to this thread.

 

[Benito1283]

Any news on your car?
I have a SC appointment and I’m adding a link to this thread.

I just came here to give an update and saw your post. Got my car back yesterday. I drove it home in the afternoon and it was warmer, like 65F. No sound. I took it out this morning (40F) and drove about 20 miles. Not a single peep. Trying not to get my hopes *too* high, but I'm hopeful. Third motor's a charm? The service at my SC was really excellent. I'm attaching my invoice in case it's helpful.

If you don't hear an update from me, the sound remains fixed. If it comes back I will update here.

@fignacious I asked them whether you could have remote engineering diagnostics done on your car. He wasn't positive about totally remote, but he said if you schedule a mobile service, they can drive the car and pipe back all the sounds via the car's mic and drive data to engineering during their drive. That way you could ensure it's driven in the morning when it's cooler. Have you heard anything from your SC?

 

[ev_go123]

I just came here to give an update and saw your post. Got my car back yesterday. I drove it home in the afternoon and it was warmer, like 65F. No sound. I took it out this morning (40F) and drove about 20 miles. Not a single peep. Trying not to get my hopes *too* high, but I'm hopeful. Third motor's a charm? The service at my SC was really excellent. I'm attaching my invoice in case it's helpful.

If you don't hear an update from me, the sound remains fixed. If it comes back I will update here.

@fignacious I asked them whether you could have remote engineering diagnostics done on your car. He wasn't positive about totally remote, but he said if you schedule a mobile service, they can drive the car and pipe back all the sounds via the car's mic and drive data to engineering during their drive. That way you could ensure it's driven in the morning when it's cooler. Have you heard anything from your SC?

Thanks for the update, hopefully it's finally fixed for you.

Looking at that invoice, it only says they put tape in a few places on the door but doesn't mention the motor replacement. Was that the first invoice and they didn't update it?

 

[Benito1283]

Thanks for the update, hopefully it's finally fixed for you.

Looking at that invoice, it only says they put tape in a few places on the door but doesn't mention the motor replacement. Was that the first invoice and they didn't update it?

Keep reading. That was their initial fix but they heard it after driving it cold the next morning.

 

[fignacious]

I just came here to give an update and saw your post. Got my car back yesterday. I drove it home in the afternoon and it was warmer, like 65F. No sound. I took it out this morning (40F) and drove about 20 miles. Not a single peep. Trying not to get my hopes *too* high, but I'm hopeful. Third motor's a charm? The service at my SC was really excellent. I'm attaching my invoice in case it's helpful.

If you don't hear an update from me, the sound remains fixed. If it comes back I will update here.

@fignacious I asked them whether you could have remote engineering diagnostics done on your car. He wasn't positive about totally remote, but he said if you schedule a mobile service, they can drive the car and pipe back all the sounds via the car's mic and drive data to engineering during their drive. That way you could ensure it's driven in the morning when it's cooler. Have you heard anything from your SC?

I actually hadn't had a chance to reach out just because of being super busy at work. Upon seeing your message, I did reach out though. Expressed my concern with driving 2 hours and then not hearing anything because of warmth and asked if mobile can record and send diagnosis back. Hoping for the best, but with the weather nice I've been driving windows down anyways. Really wonder if they got a batch of motors that had something janky with a bearing. We'll see what they say, but at this point I'm pretty low on hope and think I just have to live with it.

 

[ev_go123]

Keep reading. That was their initial fix but they heard it after driving it cold the next morning.

Ahh I see now, they wrote a paragraph about the wind noise fix and one sentence about the front drive unit haha. Too bad there's not more info on how they determined it had bad bearings.

Well I scheduled another appointment with the SC for mid April, and they just asked me for a video, so that's a good sign.

 

[milleraus16]

Same issue on 2022 M3LR. Thought I was going crazy until I read this thread. Noise typically only happens during colder weather and between 40-65ish mph. Tried to have SC take a look at it, but it was unseasonably warm during visit that issue did not present itself. Accel, braking, seem to have no impact. Interested to follow along.

 

[Benito1283]

Same issue on 2022 M3LR. Thought I was going crazy until I read this thread. Noise typically only happens during colder weather and between 40-65ish mph. Tried to have SC take a look at it, but it was unseasonably warm during visit that issue did not present itself. Accel, braking, seem to have no impact. Interested to follow along.

Bummer! Might be too early to tell, but I *think* my front motor replacement solved the issue. If you have a helpful service center you may be able to get it resolved. Keep us posted.

 

[M3Pguru]

I have the exact same noice in my 2022 M3P, starting at around 80km/h . My SC couldn't replicate the issue when test driving and suggested it might be a problem with the winter tires. I highly doubt it, since the sound is identical with the one in this thread, which clearly is not coming from the tires I will change tires in a week, and book another service appointment as soon as the annoying noice is back. Kinda happy I'm not the only one...

 

[ev_go123]

Same issue on 2022 M3LR. Thought I was going crazy until I read this thread. Noise typically only happens during colder weather and between 40-65ish mph. Tried to have SC take a look at it, but it was unseasonably warm during visit that issue did not present itself. Accel, braking, seem to have no impact. Interested to follow along.

I have the exact same noice in my 2022 M3P, starting at around 80km/h . My SC couldn't replicate the issue when test driving and suggested it might be a problem with the winter tires. I highly doubt it, since the sound is identical with the one in this thread, which clearly is not coming from the tires I will change tires in a week, and book another service appointment as soon as the annoying noice is back. Kinda happy I'm not the only one...

Interesting data points, we didn't' have any M3's before mine, it was all MY's on this thread. The totals on this thread I've counted:
4x MYLR
1x MYP
2x M3LR
1x M3P
Seems to be all 2022 M3's and late 2021 or 2022 MY's if I'm not mistaken.

Two takeaways from this (albeit, very low sample size) data, one is this seems to be a new problem, no older cars on this list. Second, all cars with the issue have a front motor. Both of these points would support something that fignacious said above, they might have had a bad batch of front wheel drive motors recently (or maybe bearings specifically).

 

[Benito1283]

Interesting data points, we didn't' have any M3's before mine, it was all MY's on this thread. The totals on this thread I've counted:
4x MYLR
1x MYP
2x M3LR
1x M3P
Seems to be all 2022 M3's and late 2021 or 2022 MY's if I'm not mistaken.

Two takeaways from this (albeit, very low sample size) data, one is this seems to be a new problem, no older cars on this list. Second, all cars with the issue have a front motor. Both of these points would support something that fignacious said above, they might have had a bad batch of front wheel drive motors recently (or maybe bearings specifically).

Yes, I think you may be right. To support this theory, the M3 and MY have the same exact front motor, regardless of Performance/Long Range.

Funny, I re-read this entire thread earlier and the OP in the very first post said he thought it sounded like a bad motor bearing.

I’m a few days away from colder weather, but after 4 days with my new motor I haven’t heard the sound once.

 

[rjack1282]

Yes, I think you may be right. To support this theory, the M3 and MY have the same exact front motor, regardless of Performance/Long Range.

Funny, I re-read this entire thread earlier and the OP in the very first post said he thought it sounded like a bad motor bearing.

I’m a few days away from colder weather, but after 4 days with my new motor I haven’t heard the sound once.

Yes my very first hunch was a bad bearing sound whether in the hub or motor. For me at least it was always a metal on metal sound and not some sort of wind noise that has been diagnosed by someone's SC. Some testing with the brakes started to push me in that direction but I think after more driving I'm moving back to bearing noise.

I had to push my SC appoint for a third time due to illness and am now scheduled for April 23.

 

[andrlilj]

I just came here to give an update and saw your post. Got my car back yesterday. I drove it home in the afternoon and it was warmer, like 65F. No sound. I took it out this morning (40F) and drove about 20 miles. Not a single peep. Trying not to get my hopes *too* high, but I'm hopeful. Third motor's a charm? The service at my SC was really excellent. I'm attaching my invoice in case it's helpful.

If you don't hear an update from me, the sound remains fixed. If it comes back I will update here.

@fignacious I asked them whether you could have remote engineering diagnostics done on your car. He wasn't positive about totally remote, but he said if you schedule a mobile service, they can drive the car and pipe back all the sounds via the car's mic and drive data to engineering during their drive. That way you could ensure it's driven in the morning when it's cooler. Have you heard anything from your SC?

If the noise in your car "stays away", I'm impressed with your SC. At least the fourth visit.
Thanks for the invoice, I will bring it to my appointment 20/04.

Keep us posted when the cold weather comes back. Norway is still at 35-45F in the mornings.