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

[davewill]

... Does your hum sound similar to this by chance?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIOWNmd8F-o

Mine definitely makes a hum that is very audible when driving near a wall or alleyway.

Wow. If I ever hear THAT coming from my car, I'll know something's wrong. That sounds horrid.

 

[citroenroen]

TONY,
HAS the new motor in your car Vin # ... 00134 eliminated your NOISE problem?
I would really like to know.
How many miles have you put on your new motor assembly?

I own Vin # ... 00139 with the same noise problem as you had.

Thank you.

 

[robertk925]

I just got my RAV4EV back from the dealer. It took 2 weeks to install (and about 3 months to get the parts) for a new motor (EV ELECT MOTOR G1100-0R011). The difference is like night and day. The new motor is amazingly quiet compared to my old one. I took it up to 85mph and there is no discernible noise change from any lower speed (except for road and wind noise of course). I am really happy that I pushed to have this done. My old motor was starting to sound like a motorboat!

I have the hum (primarily at 65mph and above), and was able to get the tech to agree that he heard it as well. My dealer contacted Tesla, and they recommended fixing the drivetrain to correct it. The parts are on order, but I believe they are just going to replace the bushings (not the entire drivetrain). It is really noticeable after driving the rental RAV4EV that they provided, which is was much quieter than mine.

 

[vips]

Robert,
I am planning to take mine to Walnut Creek Toyota as well in a few days. Any names you can provide for the consultant and the technician will be great.

 

[smkettner]

Did these noises increase over time? How much time?

 

[robertk925]

Will at WC Toyota is usually my service adviser and he is great. I am not sure how much he knows about EV's or the RAV4EV, but he always takes my complaints and comments seriously and gets a technician to check them out. He is also really good at following up, even if it is just to let me know that things are still in process (saves me the time/hassle of having to chase him down to get a status report.)

Robert,
I am planning to take mine to Walnut Creek Toyota as well in a few days. Any names you can provide for the consultant and the technician will be great.

 

[robertk925]

My RAV4eV always had a hum, but it did get louder over time. I had my motor replaced around 15K.

Did these noises increase over time? How much time?

 

[Stan]

It sounds like it is unusual, but when we bought our RAV4 EV, it had a distinctive hum at 60mph when it was cold. Over the first 10,000 miles that hum gradually went away. Now we don't notice a hum at any speed, cold or not.

 

[vips]

My car is with Toyota of Walnut Creek today and the motor hum case is opened.
Waiting for Toyota factory to call back and provide instructions for next steps.

 

[vips]

Got my car back today and the traction motor assembly has been ordered.
These are the updates received as part of health check. I was very pleased that the tech took upon himself to apply these proactively. Kudos to Toyota of Walnut Creek. The same cannot be said of Toyota of Fremont.

Performed update calibration per TSB-0082-13
old cal: VB503102 21.202
New cal: VB503150 21.210

Performed update calibration per TSB-0010-14
old cals 896B342011300 896B54201100
New cas 896b344201500 896b54201300
Tesla firmware updated from 1.3.62 to 1.3.83.

 

[Khaihon]

For those who have been following my noisy RAV4 EV, here's an update:

Before:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIOWNmd8F-o

After:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOi-_ND-Ua0

Recording was done under the hood using a digital recorder wrapped in a piece of sound dampening foam.

For the past 8 months, I've been driving with a noisy motor. It bugged the crap out of me! When I first heard it, I took it to the dealer where I bought my RAV to have them look at it. It coincided with my 5k. The service guy said, "oh there's nothing wrong with that. it's normal for EVs to make all sorts of funny noises." yeah right.

I was pretty upset they couldn't agree on how to resolve the motor noise. knowing that I was unhappy, they arranged for some corporate mucky-mucks to come by and we all went for a ride together. With a straight face, this guy told me that they all make that noise! We then hopped in a brand new RAV4 EV which was quiet as the After recording and he says that there's not much of a difference and if I was still troubled by it, I can take it to another service center for a 2nd opinion.

I went back for the 10k earlier this year and they slapped on a Quick Service thing on my car. I asked the service manager if I can get the latest firmware update and he said that I didn't need one (v. x.83 was out by now. I was still on the stock firmware from April 2014!). I let them do my car and decided I'm not getting my car serviced here ever again.

Now for the positives: I gave JasonA a short ride in my car who immediately knew my car wasn't normal. I finally decided to take my car to Carson Toyota to get the car checked out. I The service staff was fantastic. My service advisor Roger was courteous and professional. He listened to the noise and knew that it was unusual. I didn't even have to explain to him my previous frustrations. They kept my car for about a week for testing. When I came back, the technician wanted to verify the noise so we both hopped in and acknowledged it. They sent the noise to engineering and were awaiting a verdict. Turns out that they determined I needed my motor assembly replaced so they ordered one and sent me on my way. When it arrived 2 weeks later, I took my RAV in once more and got it back 3 days later with a quiet motor and ALL the firmware updates!

I'm now a happy camper. Even the Prius loaner was awesome and I'm considering picking one up when my wife's lease is up. Thanks Carson Toyota for restoring my faith in the Toyota experience. Dianne may be our star here on the boards, but the staff over at Carson Toyota is also top notch, especially the service team.

 

[vips]

The traction motor part came in at Walnut Creek Toyota and I dropped off my car today.
Got a loaner Rav4EV and there is no doubt that my car's traction motor needs replacement. The loaner is super quiet.

 

[n3ckf]

... Does your hum sound similar to this by chance?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIOWNmd8F-o

Mine definitely makes a hum that is very audible when driving near a wall or alleyway.

Wow. If I ever hear THAT coming from my car, I'll know something's wrong. That sounds horrid.

Mine sound *exactly* like that (but not as loud). Its been getting gradually louder though. The thing that's really distinctive is the way you can make it "chatter" with the hum (which sounds somewhat metallic) come on/off quickly when you feather the throttle. It might well be the CVT since it seems to only happen with power "on". momentarily removing your foot from the "gas" will stop it and you can easily make it go on/off.

I'm doing my 15K in a couple weeks and i'm going to mention that noise. Has anyone else had the similar noise to what's above and had it fixed?

 

[cwerdna]

The traction motor part came in at Walnut Creek Toyota and I dropped off my car today.
Got a loaner Rav4EV and there is no doubt that my car's traction motor needs replacement. The loaner is super quiet.

Hope this isn't a repeat question, but at about how many miles did you start noticing extra noise? At what point did it become quite loud?

 

[vips]

Mine started around 15K miles.
The sound that n3ckf mentioned in his post with throttle is exactly what I was experiencing.
When the foot hits the acceleation pedal, there was this power drill type noise that came from the motor. Then there was hum as well.
Not sure if this got noticeably louder over time.

 

[vips]

Just got my car back with replaced motor. Back to the silent motor experience.
I had forgotten how quiet this car is now that the issue is fixed.

 

[RAV4EVLovr]

vips,
I just took my RAV4 EV into the Toyota of Walnut Creek as well today for the same audibly loud humming/whining sound.

Very happy to hear that you found the techs helpful at the dealership. Thank you for that feedback...makes me feel relatively happy...at least knowing that someone else with a similar problem as mine got it fixed at the same dealership.

What I was told was that they've done all the tests they needed and have sent everything to Toyota and will await further guidance from them tomorrow. Luckily, my car is still under warranty.

Let's see what happens tomorrow...

 

[vips]

RAV4EVLovr,
The traction motor is covered till 5 year/60K per the tech.

The tech, Dan Keil (sp?) is very good and thorough in debugging the problem and applying the fixes (when it comes to it).
Wait time for new traction is 6-7 weeks and then couple of days to get it fixed.

 

[RAV4EVLovr]

RAV4EVLovr,
The traction motor is covered till 5 year/60K per the tech.

The tech, Dan Keil (sp?) is very good and thorough in debugging the problem and applying the fixes (when it comes to it).
Wait time for new traction is 6-7 weeks and then couple of days to get it fixed.

Thanks vip.
I believe it was Dan who test drove my car and a new one for comparison. He was surprisingly honest about not having too much experience with the EV as they don't have too many opportunities to explore the car more. He also mentioned there's another guy who's also EV certified, but I don't remember his name.

Well, I'm still waiting to hear back from the dealer...no word yet.

************

Update - Dealer called back stating that they will need to replace the motor. However, it'll take 6~7 weeks for the parts to arrive. So it's back to the waiting game until the part arrives. I'm just glad that they agreed to fix the issue, all while under warranty!

 

[cwerdna]

^^^
RAV4EVLovr, how many miles on your car when the problem started? Any idea if the motor had been replaced once before?