"Ringing" Engine Noise Anyone?

[SteveTheTech]

Hey SG77~ I've got a quick test for you.

EVer since this thread I have been paying close attention to all the EXs I've had come through my bay. I think I may have found one that makes the same noise as yours. This one exhibits the noise under the same conditions (partial throttle from a stop and low RPM range). I verified that was indeed the fuel pump (one of the only components on this car that emits such a frequency), I put the car in drive and lightly power braked it just enough to increase the command to an off idle level. At ~1200+ RPM you can hear a destinct change in the pitch as pump output is increased.

I would be willing to put money on this noise you have either being FP related or as I mentioned above a heater core being partially clogged.

[RollerEx35]

Stevethetech - i am having the same issue as you are describing but i just wanna make sure the noise you are talking about...is it coming from the center console near the nav screen?? or is this different?

thanks Ron!

[tazdevl]

FYI R&D engineers from Infiniti coming out this week to look at my car as part of a settlement agreement.

Steve, noise is electrical in nature, not mechanical. You can definitely tell the difference. Happens consistently when car is under acceleration.

Will let everyone know what the resolution turns out to be. Not sure why I'm bothering though, going back to Lexus. Probably to help y'all out.

I'm done with this car, Infiniti corporate and their lack of desire to resolve a problem that obviously spans platforms, is affecting a decent percentage of customers and all the other problems I've had with this damn car in 12 months of ownership.

[tazdevl]

Hi and thanks for the welcome!

I sure hope it's the fuel pump cause the noise is getting worse. I think it's the same as people here are describing it cause I've described the noise the exact same way. I spoke to an Infiniti tech guy and he said it had to do with one of the on board computers, it was the service manager who said fuel pump. I guess if it's not the pump (fingers crossed) then they'll have to look at the grounding for the wiring and computers. But one thing is for certain that sound has to go. I'll keep you posted.

Not the fuel pump.

[SteveTheTech]

Stevethetech - i am having the same issue as you are describing but i just wanna make sure the noise you are talking about...is it coming from the center console near the nav screen?? or is this different?

The heater core noise is indeed coming from the center console area, the high frequency noise I mentioned to SG77 seems to be coming over the drivers ear, upon further inspection it's coming from the back seat. The heater core noise sounds like a lower pitched buzzing noise from the dash.

tazdevl~ I'm sorry to hear about your misfortunes with your EX. Consumer Affairs is usually pretty good about coming to a fair resolution to your concerns. Keep in mind all cars have their issues and Lexus is not immune from that. What went so wrong with your EX?

[kamiguy]

I, too had a high pitched whine, but only in the morning when the car was started. Never heard it while driving at all. After my fuel pump was changed yesterday due to the campaign, the noise is gone.

[tazdevl]

The heater core noise is indeed coming from the center console area, the high frequency noise I mentioned to SG77 seems to be coming over the drivers ear, upon further inspection it's coming from the back seat. The heater core noise sounds like a lower pitched buzzing noise from the dash.

tazdevl~ I'm sorry to hear about your misfortunes with your EX. Consumer Affairs is usually pretty good about coming to a fair resolution to your concerns. Keep in mind all cars have their issues and Lexus is not immune from that. What went so wrong with your EX?

Actually Infiniti Consumer Affairs was horrible to work with and has turned me off to the point that I may never buy one of their cars again. The chance of me recommending an Infiniti to a friend is also slim to none. Read a couple earlier posts and check out the responses others received.

Agree to a point, many cars have their problems, but I've owned a lot of cars that have been problem free for years. In the end, that isn't the issue. The issue is how customers are treated when they reach out for assistance. I've been pretty reasonable about the whole thing from the get-go... folks at the dealership didn't make the car and are just trying to fix it, folks at consumer affairs pretty much take the problem report and pass it along.

I had to get a lawyer and threaten to sue Infiniti for them to do the right thing and take care me. My car has been in the shop 5 times for this noise, which gives me a migraine and 5 times for other issues (all seats replaced, stereo replaced, fuel pump replaced, steering column replaced, ringing noise, and a couple others that I can't remember. FYI these were identified before they became TSBs. The headliner/driver's window rattle and the whole seat shifting under sudden braking and acceleration still has not been fixed after multiple trips. These issues occurred in the first 6 months of ownership. Totally unacceptable in a Japanese built luxury/near luxury automobile.

I work in product management/marketing and you cannot claim your car has the highest initial quality on your website then not take care of your customers when the vehicle they own doesn't meet that description. It just doesn't work that way.

[SteveTheTech]

Coming from a marketing background you should now that all of these cars are merely wires, plastics, and metals. I understand that they should be bending over backwards to accommodate your needs and demands for the car, and from the list of things that have been replaced already on your vehicle it sounds like a fair amount of work has been performed on your car.

In either case I am staying as far away from that as possible. I wish you the best of luck and I hope you get the desired outcome.

[SteveTheTech]

I, too had a high pitched whine, but only in the morning when the car was started. Never heard it while driving at all. After my fuel pump was changed yesterday due to the campaign, the noise is gone.

That's great to hear There is a new internal component of the pump assembly that resolves the "priming" noise heard in the early models. You shouldn't have an issue with this again.

[tazdevl]

Coming from a marketing background you should now that all of these cars are merely wires, plastics, and metals. I understand that they should be bending over backwards to accommodate your needs and demands for the car, and from the list of things that have been replaced already on your vehicle it sounds like a fair amount of work has been performed on your car.

In either case I am staying as far away from that as possible. I wish you the best of luck and I hope you get the desired outcome.

Thx Steve. I work on product development in addition to downstream marketing and can tell you that if any of my customers have a problem, I do my damndest to get things resolved... I'm talking about pulling in material scientists, clinical experts, mechanical or electrical engineers.

Bottom line the number of things that have gone wrong and time the car has been out of my possession is entirely unacceptable. At 12 months, the car had 5K miles on it... if the car had 30K, I might be more understanding but I had to take it back for the first of many issues within 48 hours of taking possession and all the issues presented themselves in the first 6 months of ownership.

That's why there's a Lemon Law and I encourage everyone to use it where applicable to hold companies accountable, especially when an auto manuf is being unresponsive or you feel you should be compensated.

I do understand that a certain percentage of products fall outside the bell curve but those are the customers that need to be taken care of, not ignored. If Infiniti had stepped up and got me in another car or offered to buy the car back like I requested... I would be singing a different tune.

Let me put it this way... I think I would have had fewer problems with a German car.

[RollerEx35]

i don't know what this means but i was playing around to see exactly when i can start hearing the noise and i found this out:

-when i start the vehicle for the first minute or so i can hear the noise.-when i'm driving i hear the noise anytime the gas pedal is pressed, doesn't matter how much rpm's.-while in park i can only hear the noise when i rev'd up the rpm's to about 1800 and up.

i have an appointment with the dealer on monday but the last time i took it in they couldn't hear it even when the tech rode with me.

[SteveTheTech]

You know that really sounds like a fuel pump to me. I cannot guarantee that but spending some serious time in one that exhibited similar concerns, although not noted by the owner. If you plan on taking the car and riding with them, may I suggest a test. With the tech in the car in a quite place ask the tech to go into active test and cycle the fuel pump while sitting the car and lightly power braking the car. If the noise goes away while the pump is momentarily disabled than the pump is the culprit. You will only have a short amount of time <30sec of time before the engine starts to die to perform this test, before performing this test make sure you are able to hear the noise and easily reproduce this. For this I recommend leaving the car in gear with the parking brake applied, with the manual brake applied lightly depress the accelerator until the noise is heard. If you can repeat this at least 3 times that is exactly what criteria you will need to reproduce to successfully help the tech fix this.

The frequency at which this noise occurs cannot be heard by all people, and the in fact I was surprised I could hear the kid cell phone ring. I don't know what that says about me but after years of working in a load shop I was impressed. This is a really interesting problem as the people who are supposed to fix this may not actually be able to hear this noise. Interesting.

Good Luck.

[RollerEx35]

But the noise to me sounds like its coming from the front center of the dash. i thought you said the noise for the fuel pump comes from the back of the vehicle? Nevertheless, I will have them perform the test you mentioned. But first i'm hoping that someone will hear the noise i'm hearing. Thanks for help!

Ron

[SteveTheTech]

If you can identify that it is coming from the dash then the likelihood that it is coming from the heater core is significant.

[sg77]

I verified that was indeed the fuel pump (one of the only components on this car that emits such a frequency), I put the car in drive and lightly power braked it just enough to increase the command to an off idle level. At ~1200+ RPM you can hear a destinct change in the pitch as pump output is increased.

I tried that and I didn't notice a change in pitch, though it's hard to tell for sure.

ask the tech to go into active test and cycle the fuel pump while sitting the car and lightly power braking the car. If the noise goes away while the pump is momentarily disabled than the pump is the culprit. You will only have a short amount of time <30sec of time before the engine starts to die to perform this test... For this I recommend leaving the car in gear with the parking brake applied, with the manual brake applied lightly depress the accelerator until the noise is heard.

I'll try this next time I bring my car in for service. I'm curious about a couple things:Why do you suggest being in Drive with the brake on, instead of just being in Neutral or Park and revving the engine? To put more load on the engine?And when you say "cycle the fuel pump", do you mean the tech will turn it on/off/on/off.. quickly, or turn it off for up to 30 seconds? Is there any risk of damaging the car by doing this?

[SteveTheTech]

I'm curious about a couple things:Why do you suggest being in Drive with the brake on, instead of just being in Neutral or Park and revving the engine? To put more load on the engine?

Exactly. The load while revving the engine in P or N varies wildly and is not reliable, in gear the calculated load will increase in a controlled manner. Making for slightly more reliable test results.

And when you say "cycle the fuel pump", do you mean the tech will turn it on/off/on/off.. quickly, or turn it off for up to 30 seconds? Is there any risk of damaging the car by doing this?

There is an active test using the dealer computer that will cut the ground signal to the fuel pump, if you were to just disconnect the pump assembly it will trip a DTC as the pump circuit, fuel level sensor, and fuel temp sensor are al routed through one connector and they run detectable circuits. The reason I mentioned to perform this test for <30 seconds is primarily due to the fact that while the engine is loaded fuel demand increases so the engine will stall once the fuel that is in the line is used. This will not damage the engine (if performed correctly) and is an invaluable tool for diagnosing some noises.

That is however only really usefully if you know that the noise is coming from behind the driver. As RollerEX mentioned he knows that his noise is eminating from the dash somewhere. This is the "fun" part of tracking down sqeeks rattles, and noises, finding their point of origin then seeing what needs to be done to fix it.

[tazdevl]

OK... Infiniti R&D Engineer came out and reprogrammed the ECM in the hopes of solving the problem. Why they didn't replace it is beyond me. So at this point, no idea what's going on.

Funny... even though I had my steering column and fuel pump replaced before there ever was a TSB or recall... have to do it again. Oh well. Back to the dealer which seems to be par for the course for my EX35 ownership experience.

I'll let y'all know if another solution pops up when they look at it again, though I'm hoping I'll be in another car before that happens.

[aft981]

Well, I may have just disproved my original theory about it being the Bose system. And it was such a damn good theory too! hahah

My line of thinking was if its something to do with the speakers, we need to isolate the speakers somehow....I don't know why I didn't think earlier, I just yanked the 15A fuse for the Audio. This has the effect of not just audio, but the whole center console stopped working. No nav, the main screen didnt work, the a/c controls didnt work, nothing around there.

And yes....the noise was still there!

Back to the drawing board.

[RollerEx35]

If you can identify that it is coming from the dash then the likelihood that it is coming from the heater core is significant.

this might be stupid question but does the climate control have to be on for it to be a noise coming from the heater core?

its really hard for me to tell but the noise could be coming from the glove box area but its def coming from the center to front right of the dash...is there anything near the glove box that could make this noise? any kind of amplifier?

[SteveTheTech]

My line of thinking was if its something to do with the speakers, we need to isolate the speakers somehow....I don't know why I didn't think earlier, I just yanked the 15A fuse for the Audio. This has the effect of not just audio, but the whole center console stopped working. No nav, the main screen didnt work, the a/c controls didnt work, nothing around there.

There are a few things you can derive from your test. -First off it's not an accessory -Second blown speaker coil or failed amplifier.

There is actually a high frequency self test you can perform in the Confirmation and Adjustments menu (under speaker test). This is actually a great test it uses a high frequency tone to verify that all the speakers are working.

I have a feeling that your noise might be something different. You may have a fuel pump issue.

this might be stupid question but does the climate control have to be on for it to be a noise coming from the heater core?

No, we encourage all questions here What causes the noise that I was describing is an issue in the coolant circuit so there is nothing that can rule that out short of blocking the inlet hose (passenger side of the fire wall, using a long pair of needle nose pliers)

its really hard for me to tell but the noise could be coming from the glove box area but its def coming from the center to front right of the dash...is there anything near the glove box that could make this noise? any kind of amplifier?

There are several things that have the potential, if you can find a function that effects the noise that will point you in the correct direction.

[RollerEx35]

so I dropped my car off this morning at the dealer and the same tech who couldn't hear it last time rode with me again. he couldn't hear it this time either but I asked him if he was familiar with the fuel pump or the heater core noise and he said he dealt with those issues before but the noise i'm hearing isn't the same. he said he would check out the infiniti database again but i doubt i'm gonna get this fixed if i can't even get them to hear it.

[SteveTheTech]

I cannot tell them what to check it is on them to find the issue. There are however a few things you can do if you feel your situation is not being addressed. I would start by writing a politely worded email to the service manager, service writer, maybe the GM depending on their structure.

It drives me nuts to see you guys getting frustrated over things like noises and the such. I wish I could help you more but without being able to hear it first hand. As we were talking about before if it is indeed a frequency that is on the higher end of our listening spectrum.

Not to make excuses but;Allot of technicians have limited hearing due to hears of working in a large noisy shop for years has decreased their hearing capabilities. If you can take a ride with the manager once you find a way to consistently reproduce the noise it will make it easier to show others.

I have seen the exact thing happen in my shop where an audio engineer complained of a noise several others could not hear.

[RollerEx35]

well the dealer just called and said they still can't hear the noise but they contacted infiniti and they had 1 reported issue like mine, so they reported my issue so now its up to 2 cases, but they have no fix for it.

StevetheTech ~ you've been very helpful and I understand certain frequencies aren't heard by everyone, i just wish they tried a little harder to find out what i'm hearing.

[SteveTheTech]

Interesting, I wonder what they will do next.

When technicians call Infiniti tech assistance we are supposed to call back an close the file, but in all honesty I have only done that once and I think it is 1 more than anyone I know. The system is flawed and is in need of an overhaul but it does work, if the technician and the service writer take the initiative to follow through.

We can speculate for days (using this thread as an example ) on what the noise could be. Without knowing exactly where it is coming from there isn't much that can be done with this, and you should not have to diagnose this yourself that is what warranty is for.

Being able to replicate the noise is one of the most difficult task we (as technicians) face is adapting our personal driving style to yours (as an owner) to get whatever is happening to happen. Some noises are only present while using a feather touch on the gas while the car is in overdrive at its lowest speed (43mph), personally even when I am driving "normally" the car is still in third gear at 50. If you get the car back without a satisfactory diagnosis we may be able to try a few things.

Stay positive.

[aft981]

I just dropped mine of for a service and a few other little things too (sounds like bearings are going...an annoying droning noise from the front end especially noticeable under about 40mph). I don't know whether to mention this high pitched noise to them again. They all heard it a few months ago when I first complained about it, and their response was, I guess, a fair enough response 'we took a few out, and we heard it in all of them, so it's just a standard noise'.

However, it IS annoying, but what can we do?

My loaner this time is a G37x. It also makes the noise, BUT under slightly different circumstances. First of all, it doesn't have Bose, or Nav, its a bog standard G. However, this one makes the noise whether your foot is on or off the accelerator, so long as the engine is revving at more than 1,000RPM. If you coast up to a set of traffic lights, with your foot on neither the gas or the brake, gradually slowing down, it continues making the noise, until you slow right down, and the RPM drops below 1,000. As you accelerate away from the lights again, no noise until the RPM gets above about 1200 and then its there.

This is different to the EX in that on the EX tapping the accelerator, regardless of the RPM has the effect of producing the noise.

Just thought I'd share that one.

[SteveTheTech]

Well Andrew I really got a good mental picture of what you are describing the only issue is there are so many things that could theoretically cause this type of noise. I guess as some sort of consolation at least the G does the same thing so it may very well be a byproduct of normal operation. Please keep us posted on your outcome, and if you are ever in DC email me I would like to take a look at it.

Loaner cars are usually base Gs due to the fact that the dealer has to lease them from Infiniti and people often abuse them to astonishing levels in their ~1.5 years of normal service. Some dealers use different models to give owners an opportunity to try other models but many go with a special stripped model G that still retails somewhere in the mid thirties, despite being bare bones they still have the same power plant and drivetrain that is common throughout the whole model line.

[sg77]

SteveTheTech, for the case you had where you determined the fuel pump was causing a high-pitched noise, were you able to fix it by replacing the fuel pump? I've already had my fuel pump replaced once in September 2008 to fix the lower-pitched "moaning" noise at start up. Is there a newer fuel pump part since then?

[RollerEx35]

Thanks Stevethetech...i love this car so its gonna take a lot more to get me to the negative side. I should be getting my car back today so i will let you know.

SG77 ~ i bought my car in august 08 and have taken it into service a few times since then and they have never replaced the fuel pump because it was never an issue but i took my car in yesterday for a few things including this high-pitched noise (that they couldn't fix), but this time they replaced my fuel pump even though that wasn't one of my problems so looks like there is a newer part and they are checking them as they come in.

fyi, my loaner g35 doesn't have the noise.

[RollerEx35]

i just got my car back and the high-pitched frequency noise is still there after they replaced the fuel pump.

[tazdevl]

As mentioned... the fuel pump is not the source of the issue. I'm leaning towards design or component flaw in the electrical system.

I'm about done with the car and am either special ordering a 2010 RX350 or a LX570.

Even though the noise has not been resolved, Infiniti corporate refuses to do anything because the dealer put down that the ECM was the source of the noise and they did a couple things to supposedly take care of the issue. While I have the resources to pursue a breach of contract suit, I just don't care anymore and refuse to spend any more time on this. The likelihood of me buying a Infiniti/Nissan product in the future is slim based on the way this whole situation has been handled.

My advice for those of you who plan on keeping the car... keep taking it in and have them look at the car for the issue. Be sure it is noted on your repair orders.

Once you meet the requisite number of instances to qualify for the lemon law in your state, go online, find a free lemon law lawyer, check them out with the state bar to be sure they do not have any complaints or disciplinary actions, retain them and sue Infiniti. I sued them, they settled and I walked away with some money. Took about two hours of my time.

In your complaint and demand letter, you could include things like the fact that the source of this issue has not been identified which presents a safety risk for you and your passengers, it could be an indication that a critical function of the car is compromised and could result in a failure or fire(can't be refuted because no one knows the source), it spans multiple platforms (EX, G Coupe, G Sedan) and the number of times the car has been in the shop is not consistent with the advertised, claimed and perceived quality of the brand.

Maybe if enough people sue Infiniti, they will step up their game and actually fix this issue instead of blowing it off.

Your other option is to email Mark Igo to complain. He is the GM of Infiniti USA and can be reached at one or all of the following email addresses:

[email protected]@[email protected]

Funny enough... took the car in today for the two recall items and the noise is even worse in the G37 loaner I drove.