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

I understand the frustration, but I think you guys should wait and see what Toyota does about the recall. It would be very short sighted for Toyota to have dealers open up the drive unit to replace a speed sensor and not address the noise issue at the same time. If they put a program in place to rebuild every RAV4 EV drive unit to address the recall and the noise issues they could put it completely behind them for the remainder of the powertrain warranty. However, I wouldn't put it past them to be penny wise and pound foolish about this.

miimura said:

It would be very short sighted for Toyota to have dealers open up the drive unit to replace a speed sensor and not address the noise issue at the same time.

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I am still under the impression it is a software only thing:
Look at this article

http://www.carscoops.com/2015/03/toyota-recalls-all-rav4-evs-because-of.html

According to Bloomberg, a glitch in the car's software could force the car into neutral, resulting in a loss of power and increasing the risk of a crash. It's a problem with a part of the system Tesla developed. Toyota has not revealed how soon the software fix would be available.

This is what they printed on my worksheet after the BS they gave me about the the noise being in spec.

((( NOTE: VEHICLE IS INCLUDED IN VIN RANGE FOR INTERIM F1I EV TRACTION MOTOR RECALL. NO FURTHER INFORMATION IS AVAILABLE FROM TOYOTA AT THIS TIME.
CHECK EV SYSTEM WARNING LIGHT WILL ILLUMINATE AND VEHICLE COULD SHIFT INTO NEUTRAL. VEHICLE DID NOT EXHIBIT THIS CONDITION WHEN TESTED. GUEST WAS ADVISED TO CONTACT TOYOTA CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE CENTER WITH ANY FURTHER QUESTIONS OR CONCERNS ABOUT RECALL AT 1-888-270-9371. GUEST WILL RECEIVE REMEDY LETTER WHEN REPAIR PROCEDURE AND OR PART DISTRIBUTION HAS OCCURRED. IF CHECK EV SYSTEM LIGHT DOES ILLUMINATE, GUEST WAS ADVISED TO CONTACT US FOR INSPECTION AND REPAIRS. )))

They are addressing a totally separate issue... either they are confused, or just trying to get rid of you.

The "Pop into Neutral" issue (failed speed sensor and software that defaults to Neutral without a speed sensor signal) is completely separate from the motor "milling sound" (probably ceramic bearings in the motor).

Meeting a tech tomorrow morning sent by Toyota to my local dealer in Morristown NJ to listen to the hum.

Those guys are only paid to deny the motor swap, and claim it is within "spec" . i have gone through it twice already ..

Tony, the dealership recommended that I go through arbitration to see if I can get them to authorize the motor swap.
Any pointers ?

We shall see, I was told it's the same guy that came and did my software/firmware updates.

So the same New York Regional Field Engineer (based in West Caldwell, NJ) that made the software and firmware updates on my car last summer came out to test drive and document along with the service manager this morning and they did confirm the hum. wether or not it will be considered "within spec" remains to be seen. I did ask him if he has made any motor changes here on the east coast and he said there was one but not to do with the hum it had a faulty internal sensor. Guess it's up to the Tesla folks now to make the call.

rayray said:

Those guys are only paid to deny the motor swap, and claim it is within "spec" . i have gone through it twice already ..

Tony, the dealership recommended that I go through arbitration to see if I can get them to authorize the motor swap.
Any pointers ?

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Sure, you could go to arbitration... what happens if you lose?

I've seen the youtube video that Tony made. My car is developing a different noise - a high pitched whine or whistle in the 25 - 40 mph range. It varies with power and speed. It sounds more like alternator interference on the radio, but I can only hear it with the radio off. Plus, the EV doesn't have an alternator. Has anyone else had this type of noise, or just the gearbox grinding / hum? Was the source identified?

dstjohn99 said:

I've seen the youtube video that Tony made. My car is developing a different noise - a high pitched whine or whistle in the 25 - 40 mph range. It varies with power and speed. It sounds more like alternator interference on the radio, but I can only hear it with the radio off. Plus, the EV doesn't have an alternator. Has anyone else had this type of noise, or just the gearbox grinding / hum? Was the source identified?

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Yes, I had the same whine noise between 20-30mph. It started around 10k miles and continued to get worse until I finally couldn't take it anymore and took it to Toyota Carlsbad at 37k. They look an audio recording and sent it to Toyota and Tesla engineers. 63 days later I had a new drive unit.
I would suspect now with the recall in the works Toyota will try and delay/deny and motor problems until they have a fix. They dont want to replace a motor now in the case it turns out to be more than a software update.

I have a 2014 Rav4-EV with 5K miles and the sound I have is more like a high pitched whistle, not very loud. Definitely not the same sound as Tony's Utube. The sound I have seems sort of normal to me. Even though EVs have less moving parts they still do have some and a little noise might be expected .

Any history of the whistle getting louder over time or turning into the hum?

thanks

dstjohn99, my 2014 RAV EV appears to have a high pitched white/whistle as well in the 25-50 mph range, which also varies by speed. I can't hear it if I have the music playing (which is 95% of the time). It does sound different than Tony's video, so I thought perhaps it was just the tires, as it's hard to really pin point where it's coming from. Maybe it's normal or I'm just hearing things, who knows.

I live in San Diego (Scripps Ranch/Poway area), so maybe we can meet up some time and compare sounds. Currently it's not bothersome to me....partially because of my music blasting.

Btw, I just had the submeter installed for the SDG&E Pilot program. So far so good.

I took my EV to Hayward Toyota after taking in many times to Fremont Toyota for noise (whizzing under 50mph and Clunk at gas pedal on/off) issues. Mine has 18K miles.
Hayward Toyota was persistent and now Toyota has agreed that motor needs to replaced which is on back order.

I just made audio recordings of my 2 rav4ev's

vin: 2696 with 14k miles (whining noise)
vin: 3538 with 2k miles (silent)

I have the proximity sound disabled on the 2696 but enabled on the 3538

Listen to the difference:

http://www2.dth.net/rav4ev/sounds/2696_14k_miles_whining_noise.mp3

http://www2.dth.net/rav4ev/sounds/3533_2000miles.mp3

Sent an email to both Kevin & Percy @ Toyota.

Mine makes the same noise as your 2696. The sound characteristics of more or less power and the transition to regen and back to power are exactly the same. Mine now has 20k miles. It doesn't bother me that much so I'm going to wait to see what they do about the recall first.

Is that in the car or the motor compartment?

smkettner said:

Is that in the car or the motor compartment?

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motor department.

I assume mine is similar. Not all that bad in the passenger compartment to me.
Still have plenty of miles and time on the warranty for it to get worse.

smkettner said:

I assume mine is similar. Not all that bad in the passenger compartment to me.
Still have plenty of miles and time on the warranty for it to get worse.

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Yeah, I was thinking that if they don't have any real fix, they're just rebuilding them the same way, that I might as well wait until closer to the powertrain warranty ending so that I have a fresh one when I go out of warranty.