Very loud "engine" like sound... never heard before

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nanuq

Member
Joined
Dec 28, 2011
Messages
16
Location
Ottawa
We've had our Leaf for three months - no problems. Except tonight which may or may not be a problem.

We are sitting at a stop light and waiting for it to go green when we hear this very loud sound that I can only think is some young kid with no exhaust... except it was our Leaf! Shortly before this I had turned on the climate control and this was our first stop light after I did that. We start going, and the sound goes away.

When we arrive home, I hop out of the car and hubby stops and waits while I go into the garage. He then starts slowly driving into the garage and the loud noise sounds again - it sounds like a very loud ICE car coming into the garage. Hubby brakes to a stop part way in the garage while we listen. Turns off the climate control - sound is still there. Turns off the car and restarts it - no sound. These are the only times we've heard that.

Any ideas...?
 
I should mention that this was not the pedestrian noise. It was an abnormally loud noise (even for an ICE car I would consider it too loud).
 
nanuq said:
We've had our Leaf for three months - no problems. Except tonight which may or may not be a problem.
Click to expand...

Quite bizarre. I'm pretty sure that is not normal. So if you ruled out the HVAC compressor, I'm afraid the only things left are the coolant fan(s) or transaxle. I can't think of anything else that could make such a noise, even if it were malfunctioning.
 
adric22 said:
nanuq said:
We've had our Leaf for three months - no problems. Except tonight which may or may not be a problem.
Click to expand...

Quite bizarre. I'm pretty sure that is not normal. So if you ruled out the HVAC compressor, I'm afraid the only things left are the coolant fan(s) or transaxle. I can't think of anything else that could make such a noise, even if it were malfunctioning.
Click to expand...

Water pump? There have been a few Leafs with bad water pumps. Use the Google search to find the threads.
 
It was happening when the car was standing still? That probably rules out the drivetrain. Almost has to be a fan or pump. I'd get it in to the dealer as soon as I could.
 
Happened while standing still and driving, albeit at slow speed. We are going to see if we can get it in tomorrow.
 
Someone reported a "honking sound" while driving, otherwise, nothing else like this. I wonder if something is malfunctioning and it's being played over the loudspeaker that makes the VSP sounds. If you had a 2011 you could try turning it off, but I suspect this is not the case.

Here is a link to the other "honker"...it's a long post, so if you want to see, you should search for the word "honk". Also a Canada car...hmmm....
 
nanuq said:
We've had our Leaf for three months - no problems. Except tonight which may or may not be a problem.

We are sitting at a stop light and waiting for it to go green when we hear this very loud sound that I can only think is some young kid with no exhaust... except it was our Leaf! Shortly before this I had turned on the climate control and this was our first stop light after I did that. We start going, and the sound goes away.

When we arrive home, I hop out of the car and hubby stops and waits while I go into the garage. He then starts slowly driving into the garage and the loud noise sounds again - it sounds like a very loud ICE car coming into the garage. Hubby brakes to a stop part way in the garage while we listen. Turns off the climate control - sound is still there. Turns off the car and restarts it - no sound. These are the only times we've heard that.

Any ideas...?
Click to expand...
If the noise occurs when the climate control is off then it's unlikely to be related to the ventilation fans or the air conditioning's compressor. And since the noise can occur when you're standing still, it's not caused by the drive train's rotational components, as already pointed out. That leaves the coolant pumps (which cools the DC-DC converter, motor's inverter, and motor).

Here's one report of a noisy water pump. I have no idea whether yours might be the same problem. It does not "sound" like the same problem :) ; I don't know if a wonky coolant pump can be that loud... Please do post a follow-up if/when there is a resolution from the dealer.
 
As mentioned earlier, also inspect the fan (are there two), and there are two main-coolant pumps, I believe, and the Heater-fluid pump.

The ender-hood speaker(s) could be making noise. Unlikely a sick horn.

Do get it to a Dealer, and hope to demo the sound.
 
We are dropping the Leaf off after hours tonight at the dealer. The service guy sounded skeptical that there's anything wrong when I tried to describe it... just said "I hope we can reproduce it here." Uh huh... I asked hubby if he thought we'd imagined it and he said no way we heard it and its loud! We drove our ICE car today (freezing rain this morning and it has snow tires) so he'll have to see if he hears it on the way to the dealer.
 
It's probably just normal operation of the A/C compressor or a cooling fan. There are lots of sounds I notice with the Leaf that I have not noticed with any other car. Likely because the Leaf's motor makes no noise. So I hear everything else. The car has cooling fans that come on when driven hard or the air conditioner is running, and sometimes for no apparent reason.
 
johnr said:
It's probably just normal operation of the A/C compressor or a cooling fan. There are lots of sounds I notice with the Leaf that I have not noticed with any other car. Likely because the Leaf's motor makes no noise. So I hear everything else. The car has cooling fans that come on when driven hard or the air conditioner is running, and sometimes for no apparent reason.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I think there needs to be a little sound board that plays all the sounds the LEAF makes. There are so many new sounds that you wouldn't otherwise hear that when I first got I had no idea if they were supposed to be that "loud". The only that I'm not really sure is supposed to be normal is when the AC compressor starts it's a bit of a rumble, can even feel it in the steering wheel. Had the dealer tech listen and then we went over to their loaner LEAF and it made the same sound so for now our diagnosis is it's normal :)
 
Well considering we've had this car for three months and its never made a sound louder than an ICE before, I kind of consider this abnormal. Of course driving to the dealer last night the noise did not happen! :|
 
any motor that makes that much noise than what is considered normal is simply crying for help. get it checked out ASAP. i have had my Leaf 14 months and every once in a while i will hear the whine of a compressor pump or something. none of which is anywhere near the volume of a running engine and this is inside a closed garage which would have multiplied the sound tenfold. occasionally i will turn on the car and SO would have left climate controls on and the volume of the fans running will be quite loud but there is no mistaking the sound of fans running.
 
[rant]Can we please stop this trend of responding to every report of possible anomalies with "that's normal" responses? It's presumptuous, especially in cases of weird/unusual sounds/noises, to assume that it's normal, not having heard the sounds/noises and possibly not knowing the entire scenario leading to the problem. It's also insulting to people bringing up issues, as you're essentially telling them they're being Chicken Littles.[/rant]
 
aqn said:
[rant]Can we please stop this trend of responding to every report of possible anomalies with "that's normal" responses? It's presumptuous, especially in cases of weird/unusual sounds/noises, to assume that it's normal, not having heard the sounds/noises and possibly not knowing the entire scenario leading to the problem. It's also insulting to people bringing up issues, as you're essentially telling them they're being Chicken Littles.[/rant]
Click to expand...

An appropriate rant, Andy; I agree.
 
Just sharing;

I noticed our LEAF was making a "loud" noise when I drove it into the garage yesterday; it happened to be the radiator fan... The car had been off and unplugged for an hour as I gave it a quick rinse to clean up the bird drops, bug guts and tree seeds that accumulated for the past week or so.

The point is, and I assume, that as the weather turned warmer, the car was expecting the need for some extra cooling; the battery temperature was higher than it had been before (6 bars, I think).

Having an extremely quiet car like the LEAF has spoilt me; I now want the car to be silent all the time ;)
 

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