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

[Art Black]

I've noticed a moderately high pitched whine on my 2011 in the last few weeks. The explanation mentioned earlier:

were told it was the battery cooling fans in the back

may explain my experience. I only notice the sound on my way home from work, after having left the car parked outside all day. I live in northern CA, so relatively mild temperatures. Has been warmer the last few weeks. I have owned the car since February, but have only noticed the sound the last few weeks. The first mile of my commute is on local roads at low speed. I only notice the sound then.

I was at the Chevrolet dealership a few weeks ago for a Volt seminar. Took this picture of the trunk area. You can see a blower fan at the right edge, facing the battery. The sound I'm hearing would be consistent with that location and that size fan.

Thanks,

Art

clinic_-4.jpg

[jsmay311]

I'm now a full 3 weeks into my Volt ownership, and unfortunately I'm not getting used to this sound. Not at all. In fact, I'm starting to think that this is the single biggest flaw with this car. I was originally very excited about the near-silent operation of an EV, but this noise is almost (but not completely) negating the sound benefits over an ICE car.

My 29 year old ears hear it almost all the time at moderate speeds when accelerating/decelerating. The only time I don't hear it is if I'm going over ~45mph or if I have music playing fairly loudly. Talk radio doesn't do any good for drowning out the noise at any reasonable volume.

I only hear it whan I first take off, up to maybe 5-10 mph... I actually do like it. It sounds very hi-tech to me.

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

I hope I'm not being too presumptuous here, but I think it's pretty safe to say that anyone echoing the sentiments expressed above are NOT hearing the same thing the rest of us complainers are hearing. I don't think there's a human being alive on earth that could enjoy this particular sound. For me, it's like a very quiet, higher-pitched version of this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0cVlTeIATBs

There is indeed a "hi-tech" sound when first accelerating from a stop, like Noel mentions above. This is not objectionable to me at all and does sound kinda cool. The folks complaining about the high pitched noise are NOT talking about this particular sound.


I'm very curious if there are any engineering tools that could effectively reduce or eliminate this noise from the cabin. I was thinking about an active noise-cancelling system. But if the source of the noise isn't small (i.e., a rather large inverter), I'm not sure if this approach would be effective(?). So maybe more/better sound insulation would be the way to go(?). Or maybe the inverter itself could be modified/tuned to reduce the decibel level(?).

[Slapshot28]

Hmm... There might be something wrong with your Volt. Your son has young ears, so he might not be the best test. And you might have superhuman ears as well. (Maybe it's genetic!) Can your wife hear this noise? If so, take it to your dealer and see if they can hear it.

Admittedly I have old ears, but kids ride in my Volt all the time. They have to pay close attention to hear anything other than the radio or road noise. (Maybe we have bad genes...)

[soylentgreen]

I'm now a full 3 weeks into my Volt ownership, and unfortunately I'm not getting used to this sound. Not at all. In fact, I'm starting to think that this is the single biggest flaw with this car. I was originally very excited about the near-silent operation of an EV, but this noise is almost (but not completely) negating the sound benefits over an ICE car.

I hear ya (heh) and feel the same way at times. I've had my volt 6 months, and although the sound doesn't annoy me 100% of the time that I hear it, I'm still feeling glad that I leased rather than purchased this car.

To be clear, what I hear:

* A high pitched whine when accelerating from a stop that quickly goes out of my hearing range
* A high pitched whine when decelerating that is mildly annoying

I can live with the first two.

The one that gets me and I think I can't ever get used to:

* A high pitched whine when the engine is running (CS mode), especially when lightly decelerating - this one is just a little too loud and annoying to get used to.

I'm curious if you have the same pattern? If you haven't yet run out of battery, do try it and let us know if the sounds you are hearing are worse when the engine is running too?

I'm still of the opinion that the difference between volts is the difference between the hearing of various members -- I have quite good hearing (have worked in audio processing for years).

I suspect GM did a cost-benefit analysis and simply concluded "Well, 95% of people can't hear these high frequencies, so we'll just ignore it " :-(