Yet another wind noise thread, what has worked so far for me

[DuoRivian]

Am I the only one who has their radio turned up so loud that you wouldn’t hear an aircraft landing behind you?

Yes!

Sponsored

 

[DayTripping]

Just a quick update. I am sort of at the end of the line here until I can get the truck in for service, where they can re-align the appliqué in front of my pano roof and fix my hood alignment. I think those 2 areas should take care of what remains of my wind noise.

Here is a quick photo of my wind noise at 84 mph today. I am absolutely more aware of any road noise than wind noise in general. The wind noise is still there, but dramatically subdued compared to before. My truck is quieter now at 100 mph than it was before at 75 mph, both subjectively and objectively.

Before I started, I clearly had one of the noisier trucks but far from the noisiest I heard. Mine never was the little triangle window. Mine noise has mostly been from the wind buffeting along the front windshield and the leading edge of the pano roof.

I was ready to sell my truck it was so annoying to drive if I had airspeed of more than 75 mph. Today I drove 80 mph, into a headwind that was minimum of 10 mph gust to low 20's for 30 minutes and the truck was pretty damn quiet overall. So I was dealing with airspeeds of at least 90 mph to about 110 as sometimes I was driving faster along with the wind gusts. Before I probably would have been at my limit of 5 minutes of the buffeting before I did all the work.

So for those of you who have issues, there is a lot you can do all on your own. I've identified my problem areas and many trucks have the same issues. There is no magjc bullet in my case just a methodical approach to attacking it that has resulted in very noticeable results.

 

[Rivian crushes Tesla]

Hi
Have you tried vortex generators on your mirrors. It seems other manufacturers have similar issues with wind buffeting at high speeds around the mirrors. My Son’s GTI has vortex generators on the mirrors as standard.

 

[Rivian crushes Tesla]

 

[Rivian crushes Tesla]

I am hoping this might do the trick

 

[DayTripping]

Hi
Have you tried vortex generators on your mirrors. It seems other manufacturers have similar issues with wind buffeting at high speeds around the mirrors. My Son’s GTI has vortex generators on the mirrors as standard.

I had seriously explored this before but my roof is the cause of most of my wind noise so far. I will detail more when I have a chance.

 

[DayTripping]

I"ll provide more of an update now that I have more time. I recently had to take my truck in for service. One of the things on that list was the wind noise. They didn't fix it last time and this thread covered everything I've done to chase it since then.

I went to a Rivian Club meeting a few months ago and spoke about my issues to one of the lead techs and showed him where I thought the issues were coming from. He inspected, but didn't test drive, my truck and saw the issue I was pointing out and thought they could take care of it. I showed him all the other things I'd done to mitigate the noise and he said I needed to remove it all when I brought it in.

Fast forward to now. My appointment finally arrived and I stripped off all my weather stripping and took it to Rivian. On the way over there, it was all low speeds so I while I noticed a difference it wasn't huge. While dropping it off, one of the techs asked to go for a ride so he could see how bad it was (or wasn't).

We finally got on a freeway where I could open it up enough and OMG, I instantly wanted to sell my truck again. Even on his side, he could hear it. We were just up to 75 mph (with a 10 mph tailwind) and it was already bad. At least he agreed it was bad so we turned around and I ran it about 75-80 into the headwind and I couldn't wait to get out of the truck.

So he agreed they should reset/replace the applique forward of the sunroof and they'll replace the door seals. I forgot how bad it was before and honestly, with the incremental improvements I made over a fairly long time, it was such a stark difference when I stripped them away all at once.

So if you are playing along from home, the work I did dramatically improved my truck. If I had to drive it like it was when I dropped it off, I'd go trade it in on almost anything else including a CT.

I got a loaner R1S in the interim which is honestly a let down compared to my R1T. It has wind noise too but not as bad as my T was stripped of the stripping but nowhere near as quiet as with all the changes I did. Can't wait to get rid of the S and get my T back TBH.

 

[Rivian crushes Tesla]

Did you ever try the vortex generators, the science is sound

 

[Rivian crushes Tesla]

I found a few good videos on you tube addressing wind noise. Vortex generators greatly helped

 

[Rivian crushes Tesla]

 

[DayTripping]

I found a few good videos on you tube addressing wind noise. Vortex generators greatly helped

Yes, they can help. I haven't tried them on my Rivian as I want it to be as good as it comes from the factory first.

My first career was as an aeronautical engineer so I am pretty familiar with them and also why I am also fixated on it being right. I didn't buy a supposedly aerodynamic vehicle just to deal with driving with wind noise all day long that shouldn't be there.

Been driving my loaner more and I wouldn't keep it either. While it is better than my truck was, I had about a 15 mph crosswind while driving 70-75 and it was annoying as heck. It is one of those things that once you hear it, you can't "un-hear" it.

Sponsored