Road Noise

[Cowtownhusker]

I've had a 2020 4S for almost four years now and road noise is probably the single most annoying issue about the car in my opinion. With both the 19" summer tires and 20" winter tires it's quite loud.

I really don't buy these "it's an EV so now you notice the road noise better" arguments. Sure, they do affect the issue, but it doesn't change the fact that the Taycan has pretty non-existent noise insulation in the doors / wheel wells.

Many cars are much more quiet than the Taycan regardless of what engine they have.

Regardless of this annoyance I still ordered the updated Taycan, this time with the noise insulated glass. Perhaps it helps a little. And perhaps the new tires will be less noisy.

If it's still very noisy, I might also consider doing some customization to add insulation to the doors & wheel wells.

I have a low, resonating "whoom whoom" sound at 60-70 mph or so. Similar to an out-of-balance tire. I commute 50 miles one way to work daily on the same road. I replaced 3 of 4 Pirelli Cinturato AS at the behest of my dealer at no cost to me as they believed it to be a tire issue. First at 1000 miles and the other 2 at 5000 miles. Still thinking it was the tires, I purchased new wheels and michelin all seasons. Quieter, but still happens. I think the sound is originating from the rear motor assembly. Interestingly, it is worse on some days and not an issue at all on others. Annoying but not a huge issue.

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[Fish Fingers]

I have a 2022 Taycan 4S with pretty much all of the performance options, 21" tires, and the insulated glass.

While my car was in for service they gave me a 2023 RWD Taycan with 20" tires and no insulated glass. It did have the standard suspension as well.

Driving the same roads, about 140 miles total highway and some back roads, my 4S with the insulated glass was much quieter than the RWD without the glass.

Interestingly, I am in a ST loaner at the moment. Both cars have standard glass and are RWD.

The first thing I noticed when I got in was much higher road noise.

Not sure of the reason?

My car is saloon / 20" wheels / Michelin PS4.

Loaner is a CT / 21" wheels / Good Years.

 

[lcarron]

The good year in 21 are extremely noisy. It is like day and night between 21 and 20.

 

[Tsingtao]

For what it’s worth removing the wheel arch liners (at least the front ones) is actually super easy and not nearly as daunting as it might first seem (and replacing one as I had to do a while back - I’ll repost the thread later) - so possibly one less thing to farm out !

Truer words were never spoken. I used a 25 torx and a 10 mm socket, lossened up everything and popped it right out this morning. Buuuuuut, and it's a big buuuuuut, putting it back in after wrapping it in Thinsulate as I did this morning is a mother f****er for one person! I'll post some pics of the first wheel well that I tackled today but I literally had to hold the now-puffy liner in with my feet while attempting to put the screws back in their place. Failure was not an option so I did eventually cram everything back into place, whew!

 

[seattlefox]

My first test drive of a Taycan was a 4S CT, 20 wheels. SUPER quiet.
In comparison, with my GTS sedan and 21 wheels, the road noise is much louder.

Both have insulated glass.

 

[chun]

Pireli kinda suck for road noise; even with the insulated glass.

After installing them on my 21 wheels, the road noise was definitely louder. Definitely louder than the 20s also.

That being said, the road noise is so loud due to the absence of other noises.

In sport & sport+, for some reason, for me, the road noise is even louder and a tab bit uneven, compared to normal chasis settings.

What helped a lot was the fake engine noise to be honest, evens out the noise; doesn't affect music quality at all as far as I could notice.

 

[chun]

I have a low, resonating "whoom whoom" sound at 60-70 mph or so. Similar to an out-of-balance tire.

I have the same, but only in sport & sport + modes. Normal mode it's not there; even if I put ALL settings of normal mode same as sport mode, the sound is still not there on normal, just on sport.

My girlfriend can't even hear it, so maybe it's of a funky frequency.

My guess is, in sport & sport +, bit more power goes to the rear wheels, and the engine makes that out of balance noise.

Turning on the sport fake engine noise thingy covers it completely, or even stops it, who knows; certainly makes it bearable to my ears.

 

[Tsingtao]

Some pics of the beginning of what I hope will be an epic sound deadening project.

The plan: Start with wheel wells, install sound absorbing material where possible, and minimize resonance where possible. From there, move on to door panels and do the same. My suspicion is that I will get the most bang for the buck from the door panels, but I started with wheel wells because they are easier to take apart than door panels.

Unlike the hard, smooth plastic 911 wheel arch liners that are sound-deadened in the Resonix video (above in this thread somewhere), Taycan liners are made some soft (yet tough) synthetic material which requires a different approach than the Resonix procedure. The extracted wheel liner is pictured above.

A word to the wise for anyone attempting this at home, take lots of pics of the various torx screws and nuts holding the liner in place. They will come in handy when reassembling (especially the plastic piece pictured).

After removal of the liner, I gave it a good soaking with a garden hose to remove any dirt and grime that had accumulated.

While waiting on the liner to dry (it takes a while), I used the downtime to spiff up the inside of my wheel and clean the exposed area behind the liner. I also vacuumed out some of the gravel around the front fan. I was surprised at the amount of little gravel chunks that had accumulated.

Pictured is the inside of the wheel well closest to the cabin. My intent here was to tap around on surfaces and treat anything that made a drum-like sound with Resonix CLD. The area under the orange high voltage cable and the underside of the front fender were, I determined, the panels most likely to resonate.

Above is the flavor of Resonix that I selected (Lite CLD). I do not know if it was the best choice or not, time will tell. But I went with the lightest CLD offered to minimize added weight. The box of 10 panels only weighs about 15 lbs and based on the amount used, it should be about enough for the entire car, so maybe it would not have mattered much if I went with a little heavier CLD.

Above is Resonix being installed on one of the referenced panels. Quite easy to install; Resonix sends a free roller with the purchase of their CLD. You will however need a tool (like the interior trim tool pictured) to smoosh some edges into tight spaces.

Above is wider angle shot of the Resonix post installation.

Above is a shot of the Resonix applied to the inside of the fender. Damn near impossible to get the CLD positioned over 100% of fender interior surface area due tight spaces and a very sticky substance. But you can cover enough of the surface area, especially where it counts, near the wheel wells. After my application, I did a finger tap comparison between the treated driver's side and the untreated passenger side and the difference was significant.

Pictured above is my now-dry liner outfitted with a custom-tailored 3M Thinsulate sound-absorbing vest. As a side bar, I purchased this stuff from a place called "Vanlife" (which appears to be a site dedicated modern nomads who buy stripped down Sprinter vans and convert them into living quarters) rather than from Resonix for a few reasons: Resonix non-woven sound absorbing material is sold with adhesive pre-applied, nothing however will adhere to the fuzzy Taycan arch liners so the adhesive and release-liner would just cause problems; there is nothing magical about Resonix non-wovens as I am 100% certain that Resonix is just "private-labeling" someone else's product (probably 3M); the 3M product is melt-blown HDPE with a polyester backing (the black layer) which makes it ideal for this application; and, the 3M is only about $2/sq ft which means you can experiment with different cuts, patterns, etc. and not waste a bunch of money in the process.

Another angle of the arch liner's 3M vest. You can see where I used Gorilla tape to hold everything in place on the liner. The Gorilla tape will stick, barely, to the 3M but hardly at all to the wheel arch liner. This is a good thing because you will want to make some wedge-shaped cuts on the Thinsulate to make it as flush as possible with the arch liner before re-installing. After removing wedges, I "sewed" the seams together with a couple pieces of Gorilla tape. As I was placing the jacketed arch liner back into place on the car, I easily removed the Gorilla tape which I used to hold the jacket in position.

Before re-installing the arch liner, I pre-cut holes in the jacket with an X-acto where needed. This is a must for some areas. But for the most part, I left the edges of the liner (where all the torx screws are) free of insulation.

After re-installing the arch liner -- which is crazy hard with one person because the 3M is quite puffy and needs to be re-compressed to get all the screws back into place -- I decided to cram a couple pieces of the Thinsulate sound absorber into the air vent to help absorb tire noise from the vent. My thinking here is that the Mission E's are already so aerodynamically challenged that the benefit of the air vent in terms of range is negligible. And if I feel like it, I can pop out the Thinsulate in the winter, to maximize range, after the 20 inch Sport Aero wheels with Pirelli Scorpions go back on the car. By the way, the Scorpions are not NFO, but they are super silent, supple, really grippy, and don't kick up nearly as much road gunk through the vents as the wider Mission E's with GoodYears. In my case, the black Thinsulate matches the car so it was a no-brainer to attempt.

Conclusion: I took the beast out for a test drive and dB's seem pretty much as before, still with a 3-4 dB increase when the meter is held in close proximity to the lower driver's side door versus the middle of the cabin, thus confirming my theory that I will get more bang for the buck once the door panels are properly treated. Interestingly, the tire noise from the rear seemed more noticeable now that I have muffled the tire noise closest to the driver's seat. Perhaps this is just my mind playing tricks on me. I will keep posting as I continue this project.

 

[ciaranob]

Nice work but a bit disappointing re the result - appreciate you being the guinea pig here !
Will be very interesting to see what the door treatment will provide!

 

[lcarron]

Good work. I believe you did front and rear. The front seems difficult to do with all the conduits, hoses, and brackets.
Did you do measurements on a rough road or a very quiet one? I think you will see some positive results from a noisy road. My 2 cents.

 

[Tsingtao]

Nice work but a bit disappointing re the result - appreciate you being the guinea pig here !
Will be very interesting to see what the door treatment will provide!

Actually, I'm not at all disappointed, yet. Just one of four wheels complete, and nothing on the doors, so way too early to render a sound judgment (pun intended). From what I have researched, one must take a wholistic approach and hit every possible area for maximum results. Every dB adds up and if I can knock even two or three off the cabin noise while running on 21 inch tires it will be a very noticeable improvement. And so the mission continues!

 

[Tsingtao]

Good work. I believe you did front and rear. The front seems difficult to do with all the conduits, hoses, and brackets.
Did you do measurements on a rough road or a very quiet one? I think you will see some positive results from a noisy road. My 2 cents.

I have not yet taken measurements on a concrete-paved portion of interstate, just on asphalt which tends to be pretty quiet. I am looking forward to seeing results on a noisy stretch.

 

[bluesky]

Yeah, I never even considered doing the wheel wells on my Corvette, the big wins were the doors (two different materials), the floor, the vertical wall behind the seats, and definately the big trunk that the C6 had (two different insulation materials + heavy carpet mat). I think you’ll feel you are making progress once you do the doors.

It’s a hassle, but if you feel like it, it’d be great if you could document door panel removal and disassembly. I don’t think there is any comprehensive DIY with pictures for getting into the doors.

 

[Tsingtao]

Yeah, I never even considered doing the wheel wells on my Corvette, the big wins were the doors (two different materials), the floor, the vertical wall behind the seats, and definately the big trunk that the C6 had (two different insulation materials + heavy carpet mat). I think you’ll feel you are making progress once you do the doors.

It’s a hassle, but if you feel like it, it’d be great if you could document door panel removal and disassembly. I don’t think there is any comprehensive DIY with pictures for getting into the doors.

For sure I will document the door panel removal, disassembly and reassembly. My go-to sound absorption material is 3M Thinsulate which has an excellent noise reduction coefficient (NRC) for the 500-1000 Hz range (typical of airborne tire noise frequencies). Problem is that it is a bit fluffy and I suspect it will be a little tricky to wedge it into the door panels and still get everything back in place. I will share any learnings (or disasters as the case may be) with all my fellow Taycan misophoniacs.?

 

[ciaranob]

Actually, I'm not at all disappointed, yet. Just one of four wheels complete, and nothing on the doors, so way too early to render a sound judgment (pun intended). From what I have researched, one must take a wholistic approach and hit every possible area for maximum results. Every dB adds up and if I can knock even two or three off the cabin noise while running on 21 inch tires it will be a very noticeable improvement. And so the mission continues!

Of course - I was simply referring to the specific data pt in respect a minimal to almost no reduction for that specific wheel well test you did. Again holistic overview yet to come!

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