Mach e hurts my ears

[sockmeister]

How much should I adjust the instrument cluster? Is knocking it down two bumps enough?

If this is indeed the source of the weird noise you're hearing, just click through the whole range and try to see if it's subsided at any particular level.

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[ScottMcCool]

Have the bumpers on the trunk lid adjusted. They are not right and are allowing air to be pumped as the trunk lid moves. The trunk lid is big and a very small motion can move a lot of air which changes the pressure against your ear drum. This problem was discussed in the Tesla forum before Tesla shut it down a year or so ago.

Yep, I adjusted the bumpers on my Model Y many times. The fact that we feel it sitting still, in both the Y and the Mach e, means it probably isn't the bumpers.

 

[ScottMcCool]

Have a neighbor drive with a big fluffy pillow covering the screen. Sit in the back seat.

Call a local sound engineering professor at a local college and see if he can get a few students to study this and work it into a paper. They might have instruments sensitive enough to figure this out.

If it's real, it's detectable and that means it can be located.

I don't think it is that easy. One of the theory on the Model Y board was that it was infrasound, a frequency too low to be detected by sound equipment. I don't know if any professors or students really want to spend 10s or 100s of hours tracking this problem down.

 

[ScottMcCool]

Hey Scott, glad you finally got your car, remember talking to you on Reddit. Sorry to hear you that you are having the same issues as the Tesla, definitely a weird issue, hopefully you get it figured out.

What was your reddit handle?

 

[ScottMcCool]

Have a neighbor drive with a big fluffy pillow covering the screen. Sit in the back seat.

Call a local sound engineering professor at a local college and see if he can get a few students to study this and work it into a paper. They might have instruments sensitive enough to figure this out.

If it's real, it's detectable and that means it can be located.

The other problem is that it is a gradual thing. At any instance I don't know if I feel it, I just know after driving it for a while, my ears ring and hurt. So I can't do any quick tests. Tests will have to last a week.

 

[Carsinmyblood]

The other problem is that it is a gradual thing. At any instance I don't know if I feel it, I just know after driving it for a while, my ears ring and hurt. So I can't do any quick tests. Tests will have to last a week.

If you can detect it, a machine can too. The problem is to ferret out the stuff you don't respond to.

I had a thought. Is it perhaps the tires on a certain roadway or type of surface? There sometimes, not others...

 

[ScottMcCool]

If you can detect it, a machine can too. The problem is to ferret out the stuff you don't respond to.

I had a thought. Is it perhaps the tires on a certain roadway or type of surface? There sometimes, not others...

I spent a lot of time trying to diagnose it in my Y. Detection Infrasound is very tough, requires very expensive equipment.

More details on what I did on my Y. I tried multiple apps on the phone. Again, they can't detect infrasound. I used 2 different digital barometers, did an FFT of the readings, didn't really show anything. I bought a EMF meter, it didn't show anything, I contacted a company about renting infrasound detecting equipment, they blew me off.

Since 2 different cars by 2 different companies have done it, I'm beginning to think it is me. But then why does my wife feel it?

 

[Logal727]

What was your reddit handle?

Um, I was a big wheel of fortune fan

 

[ScottMcCool]

Um, I was a big wheel of fortune fan

LOL, no way. You were Pat Sajak's best friend?

 

[Logal727]

LOL, no way. You were Pat Sajak's best friend?

Indeed lol

 

[veronicablack]

I spent a lot of time trying to diagnose it in my Y. Detection Infrasound is very tough, requires very expensive equipment.

More details on what I did on my Y. I tried multiple apps on the phone. Again, they can't detect infrasound. I used 2 different digital barometers, did an FFT of the readings, didn't really show anything. I bought a EMF meter, it didn't show anything, I contacted a company about renting infrasound detecting equipment, they blew me off.

Since 2 different cars by 2 different companies have done it, I'm beginning to think it is me. But then why does my wife feel it?

This is really interesting to me as an amateur music producer. I hadn't heard of infrasound before so I looked it up on wikipedia and it said this:

"Infrasound, sometimes referred to as low status sound , describes sound waves with a frequency below the lower limit of human audibility (generally 20 Hz). Hearing becomes gradually less sensitive as frequency decreases, so for humans to perceive infrasound, the sound pressure must be sufficiently high."

If the sound pressure has to be "sufficiently high" for the ear to pick up infrasound, surely there is some kind of device that could also pick up this pressure too, no? Possibly not a phone app trying to pick up sub 20 hz tones. I can see how that wouldn't work. But the pressure has to be able to be measured in some kind of way.

But I do tend to think it might be more in your ear than in the car. It's definitely a bigger coincidence since it's both you and your wife, but perhaps it's due to some kind of lifestyle issue that you both share that caused similar ear problems. Presumably you're married to someone with similar interests and you live together so if it stems from an environmental issue creating an ear issue, it's not *that* surprising that you would both have it.

As for the kid who doesn't experience it? Well we all have seen little kids do a fall or some other injury that would take us out for weeks and yet the kid bounces back like it's nothing. Younger people are just more resilient.

Hope you find out what the issue is!

 

[Pushrods&Capacitors]

This is really interesting to me as an amateur music producer. I hadn't heard of infrasound before so I looked it up on wikipedia and it said this:

"Infrasound, sometimes referred to as low status sound , describes sound waves with a frequency below the lower limit of human audibility (generally 20 Hz). Hearing becomes gradually less sensitive as frequency decreases, so for humans to perceive infrasound, the sound pressure must be sufficiently high."

If the sound pressure has to be "sufficiently high" for the ear to pick up infrasound, surely there is some kind of device that could also pick up this pressure too, no? Possibly not a phone app trying to pick up sub 20 hz tones. I can see how that wouldn't work. But the pressure has to be able to be measured in some kind of way.

But I do tend to think it might be more in your ear than in the car. It's definitely a bigger coincidence since it's both you and your wife, but perhaps it's due to some kind of lifestyle issue that you both share that caused similar ear problems. Presumably you're married to someone with similar interests and you live together so if it stems from an environmental issue creating an ear issue, it's not *that* surprising that you would both have it.

As for the kid who doesn't experience it? Well we all have seen little kids do a fall or some other injury that would take us out for weeks and yet the kid bounces back like it's nothing. Younger people are just more resilient.

Hope you find out what the issue is!

In hi-fi audio parlance it’s known as infrasonic. You probably know that term. I’m not an audiophile but I’m an audio enthusiast and my 120lb 18” woofer Velodyne servo subwoofer plays down to 10Hz, which is infrasonic.
As far as OP’s issue, I’m doubting anything happening is going infrasonic but a good mic and spectrum analyzer easily pick up those frequencies.

 

[ScottMcCool]

This is really interesting to me as an amateur music producer. I hadn't heard of infrasound before so I looked it up on wikipedia and it said this:

"Infrasound, sometimes referred to as low status sound , describes sound waves with a frequency below the lower limit of human audibility (generally 20 Hz). Hearing becomes gradually less sensitive as frequency decreases, so for humans to perceive infrasound, the sound pressure must be sufficiently high."

If the sound pressure has to be "sufficiently high" for the ear to pick up infrasound, surely there is some kind of device that could also pick up this pressure too, no? Possibly not a phone app trying to pick up sub 20 hz tones. I can see how that wouldn't work. But the pressure has to be able to be measured in some kind of way.

But I do tend to think it might be more in your ear than in the car. It's definitely a bigger coincidence since it's both you and your wife, but perhaps it's due to some kind of lifestyle issue that you both share that caused similar ear problems. Presumably you're married to someone with similar interests and you live together so if it stems from an environmental issue creating an ear issue, it's not *that* surprising that you would both have it.

As for the kid who doesn't experience it? Well we all have seen little kids do a fall or some other injury that would take us out for weeks and yet the kid bounces back like it's nothing. Younger people are just more resilient.

Hope you find out what the issue is!

Hey, I remember you from the grumpy thread! Did you ever get your car?

I tried measuring it in the Model Y with a barometer and then doing an FFT to find the infrasound. Nothing really jumped out in the results

My wife and I are fairly boring people, no activity that I can think of that would cause a similar ear issue. When I say my kids, I'm talking a range of ages from 15 to 22.

If you google "Model Y ear pressure", you will see a lot of results. So I believe that the Y had an issue. I don't see that when I search the mach e forums, though one person on this thread had a similar experience. My hope was that it was all in our heads, but after a month I'm starting to wonder if it is real.

I'm going to try to work this from both ends. I'm doing what the ear Dr suggested (Taking sudafed to open up the ear tube, lipflavonoid to get rid of the ringing) and I will also try the suggestions that people have made on the forum (changing the screen intensity, driving in whisper mode, etc.) I'm hoping that something works.

 

[JamesInWeston]

"Lucky" for me I'm almost completely deaf in my right ear, so I don't have to hear the screen whine while driving . Though my wife says she doesn't hear it either, so maybe I have one of the good ones.

What, good display or good wife?

 

[ScottMcCool]

In hi-fi audio parlance it’s known as infrasonic. You probably know that term. I’m not an audiophile but I’m an audio enthusiast and my 120lb 18” woofer Velodyne servo subwoofer plays down to 10Hz, which is infrasonic.
As far as OP’s issue, I’m doubting anything happening is going infrasonic but a good mic and spectrum analyzer easily pick up those frequencies.

How much for a good mic that will pick up infrasound? It seems like whenever I really look, I am seeing about 1000. I'm not an audio enthusiast so I don't know much at all. And I don't even know if that is the issue. With the Y, one theory is that the hatch wasn't tight and would bounce, acting like a huge subwoofer doing a pressure wave that hurt ears (not just mine, this was somewhat common). I took my Tesla in several times to service. One time they said that it wasn't a known issue, but they were aware of it so they put some dampers in. I also adjusted the hatch bumpers many times myself. It definitely helped, but not enough. If that is the issue on the Mach e, it isn't a constant frequency wave so I don't know if a spectrum analyzer would pick it up.

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