Insane charging noise

[jdsimard2012]

No. Didnt use it for 1 hour before charging. The last time I drove it for more than 1 minute was 3 hours before. So its been off for quite some time. Also it was around 60 F, 16 Celsius during that time.

I was not aware those vents open. Only when charging or when driving?

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[ARK]

How much noise is normal? I will be parking the car next to my house, and my neighbors living room is just a few meters away. Should I be worried?

I don’t think so, OP’s car seems to be making a really loud noise to me. Mine has never been that loud.

Frankly, I feel that L2 charging was designed with the knowledge that people would L2 charge overnight. If so, it does not seem likely to me that engineering would find noise as loud as an air compressor, if we are not exaggerating, as acceptable with this use in mind.

That being said, if your neighbor’s living room is that close, I do think they might be able to tell when you are charging, especially if they have a window open. Not necessarily loud, but perhaps like a deep hum coming into their home. For example, I can tell my Mach-E is charging outside through the garage door but not any walls in the house. Maybe try charging at the dealership to get a sense of how loud it will be?

 

[generaltso]

I was not aware those vents open. Only when charging or when driving?

They will open any time the car needs more cooling, which could be while charging, driving, or just sitting still.

 

[Havok]

I don't think it has anything to do with the power. The 3-phase power source results in 380v RMS, so at 15A the power delivered is about 6kW. But even on a 150kW charger my car doesn't produce anything I would call loud or annoying.
Probably there is some defect and it's better to take the car to the dealer to fix the problem.

OP is right, with 3-phase power in Europe you can reach the maximum spec of on-board charger of the Mach-E (namely: 7.2Kw mono-phase, 11Kw tree-phase). AC charging has little to do with DC fast charging, as the onboard charger is not used to transform AC to DC. I expect the cooling required for maximum power on the on-board charger to operate acordingly, there should be some serious cooling ongoing.

However I don't know if this particular car has any problem with the cooling system. Other posters have given solid advice, namely:
- Limit the EVSE to deliver less max power, instead of 11Kw try to lower it to 7Kw. There should be an immediate reduction on cooling required and thus noise. Three-phase power is not common in houses, at least here in Spain, and more likely at businesses / industry, therefore I would target 7.2Kw max.
- Have the car inspected by a tecnician at the dealer just in case.

 

[BadgerGreg]

Yes, this is normal; especially if you have an EVSE that can deliver a full 48A. The battery coolant system kicks in and goes full blast during the middle of the charging session. It surprised me too, but I’m not bothered by it because I can’t hear it when the car is in the garage. I expect there are some scenarios where it might be annoying to someone else if the car was parked outside.

I agree with the others on this thread suggesting a reduction in the amperage (32A instead of 48A). 32A is good enough for most scenarios, unless you’re at 0% and need to be topped up to 100% the following morning. You’ve got me curious now…I’m going to try a 32A session at home and see what happens.

 

[rvee]

This doesn't sound normal. Did same charging @ 11kWh rate produces this sound.

 

[gtin]

My mach-e Standard Range into 20 minutes charging in the morning. I have not driven it before charging. For me this is a red flag, if I had knew this before I am not sure I would have bought it.

 

[gtin]

It must be caused by the poor engineering design that Munro live mentioned on his review.

 

[Kamuelaflyer]

My mach-e Standard Range into 20 minutes charging in the morning. I have not driven it before charging. For me this is a red flag, if I had knew this before I am not sure I would have bought it.

I have a pve system and charge during the day. What this sounds like to me is when I have the car plugged in (7.2 Aeroviroment EVSE) and 2 of the 3 inverters on the solar system are churning away. If they're not running, the car charges rather quietly.

 

[ODBMongoose]

I have a pve system and charge during the day. What this sounds like to me is when I have the car plugged in (7.2 Aeroviroment EVSE) and 2 of the 3 inverters on the solar system are churning away. If they're not running, the car chargers rather quietly.

Can you explain? I have a solar system too.
Dont quite understand what you mean

 

[ODBMongoose]

My mach-e Standard Range into 20 minutes charging in the morning. I have not driven it before charging. For me this is a red flag, if I had knew this before I am not sure I would have bought it.

Exactly. This is not acceptable

 

[Kamuelaflyer]

Can you explain? I have a solar system too.
Dont quite understand what you mean

Our system is essentially off grid. We have 36 panels, 3 inverters and 2 16 kWh (each) batteries. When the evse is plugged in, that a large draw and usually is almost equal to what the panels are producing at any given time. If anything of significance is running in the house, it means tapping the stored energy in the batteries. That will mean 1 or more inverters will be running and making noise. The more, the noisier. If the panels are producing say 9 kWh, and the house demand us under 1 (not unusual) and the batteries (solar system batteries) are full, then almost no noise is made.

Keep in mind that for us the grid is a backup, nothing more. Those with more traditional style systems may get different results.

 

[Mopey]

Ah ok well thats too technical for me and it feels as a workaround for something that should not be there. Planned a visit to the dealer. Hope they can fix this without a hassle and quickly because I planned a holiday with it to France.

What is the make and model number of your EVSE? We should be able to look up the manual to see if you can set the charge to a lower amperage.

Not sure how the Netherland's utility companies integrate home solar with their billing system, but unless you have a really large solar array, you'll probably want to set your EVSE to a lower amperage anyway so as to ensure your car charging minimizes the need for supplemental, commercially generated (i.e. expensive) power.

I reduced my 48a Ford Wall station using the internal dip switches to keep the power draw below my solar array's output. And, yes, it has also significantly reduced the sound the car makes when charging. But, even when charging at a full power (11,500 watts), my car never sounded as loud as yours.

 

[JBA]

Here in the Netherlands on our local forum quite a few are complaining about insane cooling noise while charging. It's not that hot in our country so there is no reason why it should do this. Turns out a lot more complaints came in at the dealers and lease companies.

Most complains come from people with 11kWh AC charging (which is being achieved by 3 fases x 16A in our country ). While with DC charging they don't have the issue. Like being mentioned by Havok most likely the AC/DC converter is to blame as appearently it gets hot @ 11kWh and needs heavy cooling. However there are also a lot of people which don't have this issue or to a much lesser extend while having exactly the same setup.

Reducing to 3x 12A (about 8 kWh) seems to help for some.

This cooling noise is however not normal and shouldn't be treated as such.

Perhaps its a (wrong) cooling tubing issue with some cars (with 32 hoses in the fruck there is a lot that can go wrong!) or something else is wrong.

Fords is looking into it is being told, lets hope they find the problem soon.

 

[Terry]

My Mach e sounds exactly like that. I was concerned as well. It is very loud in my garage. You can hear it on the 2nd level of the house over the TV. I have the Ford Connected Charger which is 48 Amp. I will be curious if the dealer tells you it is normal.

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