Minore but very annoying noise issue on new CT 4S My25

[Mats]

End of last October, I swapped my My 22 CT 4S with a new 4S My 25. Btw, extremely happy with both of them although, the upgrade was signifikant in so many aspekter.

The only minor issue, I had (and still have) is a very light sound like from some loose part inside the drivers seat hitting the seat while light braking or turning at an intersection. It's far from all the time but still frequently enough to be annoying in an otherwise wonderful drive.

It's just happening at very light braking or rather from the Innodrive slowing down the car from e.g. 90 km/h to 70 or even from 50 to 30. Hence, impossible to force it to happen by hard braking or in any other way.

Have had it twice with the Porsche dealer. First time they made a major full-day sw update and short test drive w/o recognising any sound. Brought it back a week later and had the service manager to test drive it with me and another service guy from the dealership sitting behind him driving. During a maximum of 3-4 km drive we heard the sound twice. Based on this, they kept the car in trying to locate and solve the issue. Today, they have had it for one week but no real action aside from testdriving it. Last Friday, they even drove it 80 km still w/o being able to exactly locate it. From our common test drive last Monday, we all three agree it is comming from the headrest of the seat.

Are there by any chance any similar experiences among our dear friends in the forum?

What to do if they can't find and fix the issue on a brand new car with just 4000 km on the odometer?

Thanks,

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[whitex]

Unfortunately your options are to keep taking it to the dealer, learn to fix it yourself, or learn to live with it.

I had a rattle behind an instrument cluster of my Taycan. Dealer took it apart, changed clips and padding, that fixed it for about a week. Sound came back. I stuffed some black foam behind the instrument cluster, problem solved. You can only see it if you know where to look (foam is black, as is the instrument cluster). Is it perfect, of course not, but having owned many cars in the past, I know it's a long and annoying process to fix hard to reproduce noises. At one point, for my past cars, I actually learned to disassemble the interior trims and pad things myself - it was less hassle than booking appointments, driving loaners, then having the problem re-appear after a while. EVs are especially susceptible to this due to not having a ICE engine noise to mask other noise.

That said, I did own once car, many years ago, which developed an annoying creak which neither the dealer or I could fix. It started happening after I was forced to use snow chains on my tires during a road trip through mountains, which shook the crap out of the car. I tried living with it, but couldn't, so I ended up trading a two year old car for a new one, lost some money on it, but I really couldn't live with the creaking.

 

[chun]

It's under warranty on a brand new car; so a defective seat should be replaced under warranty It will probably take 2-4 months for them to make you a seat, but yea.

And if they say it's not defective, you can ask them to pick any other 3 taycans from their lot and show you that all brand new taycans ship like that. If they can't, than the seat is defective, and covered by warranty.

Also, this does not fall under the "interior trim", as it is not a piece of leather making the sound or some broken panel. It is inside the seat, therefore it's part of the seat, which is a component of the car, which broke under warranty. If they can't fix it, they need to replace it under warranty.

 

[Mats]

Unfortunately your options are to keep taking it to the dealer, learn to fix it yourself, or learn to live with it.

I had a rattle behind an instrument cluster of my Taycan. Dealer took it apart, changed clips and padding, that fixed it for about a week. Sound came back. I stuffed some black foam behind the instrument cluster, problem solved. You can only see it if you know where to look (foam is black, as is the instrument cluster). Is it perfect, of course not, but having owned many cars in the past, I know it's a long and annoying process to fix hard to reproduce noises. At one point, for my past cars, I actually learned to disassemble the interior trims and pad things myself - it was less hassle than booking appointments, driving loaners, then having the problem re-appear after a while. EVs are especially susceptible to this due to not having a ICE engine noise to mask other noise.

That said, I did own once car, many years ago, which developed an annoying creak which neither the dealer or I could fix. It started happening after I was forced to use snow chains on my tires during a road trip through mountains, which shook the crap out of the car. I tried living with it, but couldn't, so I ended up trading a two year old car for a new one, lost some money on it, but I really couldn't live with the creaking.

Thanks for your POV.

 

[Mats]

It's under warranty on a brand new car; so a defective seat should be replaced under warranty It will probably take 2-4 months for them to make you a seat, but yea.

And if they say it's not defective, you can ask them to pick any other 3 taycans from their lot and show you that all brand new taycans ship like that. If they can't, than the seat is defective, and covered by warranty.

Also, this does not fall under the "interior trim", as it is not a piece of leather making the sound or some broken panel. It is inside the seat, therefore it's part of the seat, which is a component of the car, which broke under warranty. If they can't fix it, they need to replace it under warranty.

Thanks for your views. Highly appreciated and I will bring it with me in my coming communication with the dealership.

 

[FlyingPoint]

Reminiscent of the early days to be sure. When I took delivery of my MY21 RWD, there were so many rattles that it took over 1 year and 80 pieces of foam to eradicate them. I got all but one of them. If I used the workshop to find and repair the rattles, the car would be in the shop forever. My experience taught me that where a sound appears to be originating from is not always the source. I remember that there was a rattle coming from the upper left dash on driver side. When I isolated the rattle, it was coming from the passenger B pillar. The sound traveled, just like a leak in a roof.

Work the problem, using trial and error. Use any material you can to isolate the location. Check the seat bolts etc.

 

[Mats]

Reminiscent of the early days to be sure. When I took delivery of my MY21 RWD, there were so many rattles that it took over 1 year and 80 pieces of foam to eradicate them. I got all but one of them. If I used the workshop to find and repair the rattles, the car would be in the shop forever. My experience taught me that where a sound appears to be originating from is not always the source. I remember that there was a rattle coming from the upper left dash on driver side. When I isolated the rattle, it was coming from the passenger B pillar. The sound traveled, just like a leak in a roof.

Work the problem, using trial and error. Use any material you can to isolate the location. Check the seat bolts etc.

Very true about your experiences. Not easy to locate and really can come from a very different spot. Talked to the service team a while ago and still they can't find it even after installing a system of microphones. Will pick it up tomorrow and see If I can locate it myself or if it will appear more frequently. Then, we have to pick it up from there. Although annoying, I can't blame the dealer as they are very helpful and service minded.

 

[iamai]

hopefully it is not some kind of piece like a damper that you have to take out half a car to get to:
fast forward to 8:52 in this video

 

[Mats]

I forgot about this earlier posting as did post a new one including the final verdict. Not a good one, though.

On the third visit to the service center, I got a new CT4 MY25 as a loaner and after just a short ride noticed the same issue which I immediately reported to the technichan team. After the weekend they got back to me after testning more MY25 units, all with the same problem. Now, the feedback from Zuffenhausen was that the sound is coming from a "break enforcement system". Hence, as of now no solution to get rid of it. To me, this seems very weired for a Porsche at this price range......
//Mats

 

[whitex]

I forgot about this earlier posting as did post a new one including the final verdict. Not a good one, though.

On the third visit to the service center, I got a new CT4 MY25 as a loaner and after just a short ride noticed the same issue which I immediately reported to the technichan team. After the weekend they got back to me after testning more MY25 units, all with the same problem. Now, the feedback from Zuffenhausen was that the sound is coming from a "break enforcement system". Hence, as of now no solution to get rid of it. To me, this seems very weired for a Porsche at this price range......
//Mats

Porsche marketing showing how each and every one of the Porsches is tested for noises at the end of production line with an array of microphones while on rollers simulating driving, is missing a footnote that the "pass" criteria are set to a threshold that passes the vast majority of cars - such are realities of manufacturing. This means if there is a noise present in large number of the cars, it will be considered ok.

Personally, I just resort to workarounds, like switching driving modes to avoid driving at 50mph in 1st gear (which produces a very high pitched whine, louder with rear seats down), or stuffing some packing foam behind my instrument cluster (had service fix it once, the fix lasted about a week - so obviously just a design where things get loose and start creaking).

All that said, IMO Porsche is not worse than other manufacturers. All cars I've owned had such issues. The era or EV drivetrains is making those seem worse as there is no rumbling engine noise to mask the other noises. When I was younger I spent more time finding permanent solutions (like adding additional noise insulation around the car), today I choose to live with "good enough" solution, for example packing foam behind my IC is black, so you have to look real close to realize it's there, and only see it if looking from outside of the car.

I am not a car designer but I imagine designing and then mass manufacturing a truly quiet car is very hard. Maybe possible with ultra low volume, hand assembled cars, where tolerances can be much tighter? I've never owned a Rolls Royce, I've read that when brand new they are ultra quiet inside. Or maybe the hearing range of a typical RR customer is just lower? ?‍

 

[whitex]

@Mats, where did they say (physically) is the noise coming from? Perhaps you could just add some noise insulation to mitigate your issue?

 

[FlyingPoint]

Porsche marketing showing how each and every one of the Porsches is tested for noises at the end of production line with an array of microphones while on rollers simulating driving, is missing a footnote that the "pass" criteria are set to a threshold that passes the vast majority of cars - such are realities of manufacturing. This means if there is a noise present in large number of the cars, it will be considered ok.

Personally, I just resort to workarounds, like switching driving modes to avoid driving at 50mph in 1st gear (which produces a very high pitched whine, louder with rear seats down), or stuffing some packing foam behind my instrument cluster (had service fix it once, the fix lasted about a week - so obviously just a design where things get loose and start creaking).

All that said, IMO Porsche is not worse than other manufacturers. All cars I've owned had such issues. The era or EV drivetrains is making those seem worse as there is no rumbling engine noise to mask the other noises. When I was younger I spent more time finding permanent solutions (like adding additional noise insulation around the car), today I choose to live with "good enough" solution, for example packing foam behind my IC is black, so you have to look real close to realize it's there, and only see it if looking from outside of the car.

I am not a car designer but I imagine designing and then mass manufacturing a truly quiet car is very hard. Maybe possible with ultra low volume, hand assembled cars, where tolerances can be much tighter? I've never owned a Rolls Royce, I've read that when brand new they are ultra quiet inside. Or maybe the hearing range of a typical RR customer is just lower? ?‍

I guess you never owned a 2021 MY. More rattles than a snake in the New Mexico desert.

 

[whitex]

I guess you never owned a 2021 MY. More rattles than a snake in the New Mexico desert.

I have never owned a 2021 Model Year Taycan, or 2021 Model Y (wasn't sure what you meant by 2021 MY). I've had 6 EVs - 2023 Taycan, 2013, 2015, 2017, and 2018 Model S'es, and 2024 Audi Q8 eTron. Out of all of those, I think Audi has been the quetest drive, but I only drive it occasionally while my wife, who drives it daily, doesn't care about such noises, plus the Audi has enough functional issues for her to dislike (like randomly unable to load a user profile - even a local user profile, stupid usability decisions like implementing an accessory mode - an ICE concept, or shutting off the car 3 minutes after driver gets out of the seat, even if the car is full of passengers and the key fob is left in the car, etc, etc).

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