anyone hear an annoying high pitched sound,,, any way to stop it

[bjhorton2005]

I LOVE the sound! I wish it had the loud whine of a DC motor sometimes. :P

[soylentgreen]

True, it's an electric car, so it makes high pitch noises, but most of them are not too bad.

However, my 2012, when in CS mode (e.g. the gas engine is running) and decelerating, it has a very loud high-pitch whine that really gives me a headache. I'm fortunate to have pretty good high frequency hearing, and it's really quite annoying. To me it's the biggest flaw of the Volt (second perhaps to the big blind spots).

I've never driven another Volt, but I'm assuming that they all make the same noise?

You can use this website to see if you can hear those sounds yourself: http://onlinetonegenerator.com/

I'm guessing the Volt noise is somewhere between 9KHz and 12KHz? Lots of folks simply can't hear those noises.

[BAZINGA]

I can only hear it when driving close to a wall/building say going thru a drive-thru window at some fast food joint. But it's not annoying to these old ears, in fact I like the clean high tech sound that announces the future of the automobile.

[tman]

thanks for the help..... took car to dealer twice,,, they have no idea, they have only sold 2 volts. my rear cover fits fine, please let me know if you've heard anything else. I guess i'm one of the sensitive ones but I get a headache from it.

[Fulgerite]

What you hear is probably harmonics from the high frequency power inverter that drives the motor. The actual frequency of the power is above the range humans can hear... But the harmonics can "rattle" the windings in the motor at a frequency which is audible. The resulting sound is usually not very loud to humans. It's normal for electric vehicles to make these sounds. It's nothing to worry about. (And there is almost nothing that can be done to make it go away.)

[feinstei]

I worry about it annoying my dog.....

[soylentgreen]

In my car, the noise is only loud and annoying when the engine is running and I'm not accelerating. In that circumstance, I suspect the power flow is primarily from the gas engine to the generator to the battery. It seems to me that this should be about the same as when you are in electric-only mode and regen, but it's not, it's much much louder.

Any gurus out there with a theory as to why the whine noise would be so much louder in the case when you are in CS mode?

[VoltCrazee]

There is a noise that I hear on some Volts and not others. My first car (C3344, GM buyback) was absolutely silent when the car was booted on and remained in park. My new Volt (C14506) makes a constant high pitched whine (not ultra-high but high) when the car is turned on which cannot be heard inside with the windows up. At the dealer we listened to another car on the lot and it made the same sound. My friends Volt in LA is also silent like my first. It sounds as if it is an electrical related sound. The sound is not the same as the whine the electric motor makes a low speed when staring to drive. Any ideas?

[Voripteth]

VoltCrazee, we ran into the same situation and were told it was the battery cooling fans in the back. Our Volt adviser said this was "normal". We did hear the same sounds on another Volt but we swear it wasn't there when we first bought the car.

[wizkid057]

I can hear the electric motor going at low speeds when first accelerating, probably because the AC frequency being sent to the 3-phase motor at those speeds is low enough so that the motor emits it audibly. Once the motor RPM gets a little higher the pitch is likely way too high for anyone to hear, if it even continues.

I generally can only hear it clearly with the windows down in a parking garage or near a building. Never can hear it with the windows up. (2012)