ALL POSTS - motor whine or "HUM" (Milling Sound)

Dealership said they will open a case for mine

Well, I never got a response here, so I decided to give Toyota Carlsbad a shot at fixing my hum (I think it's more of a whine personally). So far, they've spent a day diagnosing and taking video and audio recordings to send off to Toyota. They claim they've "never heard of the problem". At least they haven't tried to say it isn't a problem. So I get to drive a rental Corolla around on Toyota's dime (I, of course, have to pick up the tab for the gas) until they figure out what they want to do. The only bad part was that they wouldn't give me the loaner until Toyota approved it, so I had to go a day without a car, and then make an extra trip back to pick it up.

So yesterday the service adviser told me that Tesla is sending them a new drive motor to install. I've taken the vehicle back until they get it in. I could have stayed in the loaner on Toyota's dime, but I wasn't enjoying driving a Corolla all that much. I have to say that Toyota Carlsbad's service dept. has been as professional and nice as I could ask for...a complete 180 to their sales folks who rubbed me the wrong way so badly that I've bought my last two Toyotas from Dianne in Carson.

Im going to try Palo Alto Toyota for my 25K service to see if i get a different answer....
(25K is in another 6 weeks or so for me)

Well, My RAV is back, and silence is indeed golden. The entire timeline was:

Bring it in on a Wed morning
A day to diagnose
New motor arrives from Tesla on the following Wed.
Bring it back in on Thursday morning
All done by Sat afternoon

They had originally thought it was going to take longer to do the actual motor swap, so the call to pick it up was a surprise. I was quite satisfied with the way Toyota Carlsbad handled the whole thing.

I thought the description of the problem was interesting. It said, "Contacts with armature bearing coming apart making noise; replaced drive motor"

n3ckf said:

Im going to try Palo Alto Toyota for my 25K service to see if i get a different answer....
(25K is in another 6 weeks or so for me)

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and this did indeed work.

I took it in today for my 25K service and they identified the problem and ordered a new "propulsion unit" for my vehicle.

Should be here sometime next week.

SO i'll let you know how much quieter it is after the swapout. (I wanted to get this done sooner rather than later becuase i dont know if they would do it if i had the aftermarket Chademo charger Tony is making installed *before* they had to do a swap like this.

I'm not sure if it is the cooler weather or not, but my motor's whine seems to be more than usual. When Tony flies out to install a few JdeMO systems on several Austin RAV4EVs next year, I'll get his opinion as to the level of my motor sound as well as be able to drive some others for comparison. If it is getting worse, I expect to make a road trip out to southern CA sometime next year to get it replaced. The only problem is that it seems to be at least a week between acknowledgement of a problem and the receipt of a new system. I wish a traveling Toyota tech (who has done my firmware updates) would be able to authorize the swap-out so that the system would be at the shop when I arrived.

As for driving out west on I10, the first fast charger from Austin isn't until Tuscon, and only four Level 2 stations between Austin and El Paso 575 miles away. With one additional residential stop, I can break up that section into runs no more than 115 miles. The biggest problem will be the 200 mile stretch between Las Cruces, NM and Willcox, AZ.

However after Tucson, its Fast Charging all the way!

yeah i think it is a bit whinier when its cold.

Anyway, my vehicle is at Palo Alto Toyota now and they have my new "propulsion unit" in stock. No luck getting one that runs on anti-matter...

So i'll know tomorrow how quiet it gets after the replacement (apparently they have it down to only about 6-7 hours of work).

and i have it back!. Interestingly, the serial #s of my "propulsion unit" are on the sheet i got. The original serial number had a K in it, the new one is a much smaller number and has an "E" in it.

Anyone else notice this when getting a replacement?

And yes, the sound of silence is *amazing*!

n3ckf said:

and i have it back!. Interestingly, the serial #s of my "propulsion unit" are on the sheet i got. The original serial number had a K in it, the new one is a much smaller number and has an "E" in it.

Anyone else notice this when getting a replacement?

And yes, the sound of silence is *amazing*!

Click to expand...

That letter stands for month of manufacture. A=January, B=February, and so on...

That letter stands for month of manufacture. A=January, B=February, and so on...

Click to expand...

So that implies my new motor was manufactured before my "old" one.

old one: #T12K0003131
new one:#T12E0000328

Hmm i dont know if thats a good thing or a bad thing. I assume that when they replace expensive parts like this, they do whatever upgrade to the part they're putting in to prevent the same problem happening again.

(On the other hand, if the low part of the serial # is the sequence #, that means that they had already manufactured over 3000 motors by Nov of 2012 (12K)?)

From posts on the Tesla forum this is the format the battery pack serial #s use (there are several posted from Tesla owners that start with T12K or T13 something...)

There are no T12E numbers out there i could find.

n3ckf said:

That letter stands for month of manufacture. A=January, B=February, and so on...

Click to expand...

So that implies my new motor was manufactured before my "old" one.

old one: #T12K0003131
new one:#T12E0000328

Hmm i dont know if thats a good thing or a bad thing. I assume that when they replace expensive parts like this, they do whatever upgrade to the part they're putting in to prevent the same problem happening again.

(On the other hand, if the low part of the serial # is the sequence #, that means that they had already manufactured over 3000 motors by Nov of 2012 (12K)?)

From posts on the Tesla forum this is the format the battery pack serial #s use (there are several posted from Tesla owners that start with T12K or T13 something...)

There are no T12E numbers out there i could find.

Click to expand...

Your replacement is 3 serial numbers older than the motor on my original RAV4 (it was 331).

These were all built in the very first days of Model S / RAV4 EV motor production, May (E) of 2012

you say was... what happened to that Rav4? I thought you still had a very early serial # rav4?

The way I read it, you got a rebuilt motor that has a serial number very close to Tony's original motor, which is no longer in his car because it was replaced.

n3ckf said:

you say was... what happened to that Rav4? I thought you still had a very early serial # rav4?

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That motor (serial 331) was replaced at about 11,000 miles in #1134. I have 44,000 miles on it now.

Took my car in for routine maintenance and asked them listen to it to see if the whine was excessive. They told me they were opening a case for it. It's 2012 which I bought in May of 2013.

arnold

Toyota of Palo replaced the propulsion unit in under 5 hours.

Old serial# T12K0002729
New serial# T12F0000520

arnold

arnolddeleon said:

Toyota of Palo replaced the propulsion unit in under 5 hours.

Old serial# T12K0002729
New serial# T12F0000520

arnold

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WOW, that's a really fast turn around. Wonder how long it would take to replace the engine in an ICE vehicle.

Anyone in the SF Bay Area that could let me get a ride in your car one day? Mine makes this weird buzzing noise in low speeds. Sometimes I do kinda hear it on the freeway but the road noise makes it hard to tell. Not sure if I have the same problem. I want to ride in another to compare.

fusiondynamics said:

Anyone in the SF Bay Area that could let me get a ride in your car one day? Mine makes this weird buzzing noise in low speeds. Sometimes I do kinda hear it on the freeway but the road noise makes it hard to tell. Not sure if I have the same problem. I want to ride in another to compare.

Click to expand...

sure where are you? I'm in the east bay (Fremont). My car has been *fixed* so i dont have the hum anymore.