High Pitch Noise Hurting My Ears
 

Took my baby back to the dealer and said I don't want it back until its fixed. The dealer rejected my claim of a high pitched noise coming from the back of the car that is so hard to hear but actually hurts your ears. My girlfriend complained too about this to me. Went back again ..and now the dealer says i'm right and all the cards in the lot have this problem. The service guy said it sounds like a bad fuel pump that puts out this high frequency noise...what is the deal..

..anyone heard this before. Is this a factory problem? Thanks in advance.

btw...i put in stillen generation 3 intakes and she sounds real throaty now..and a little faster...2nd gear burns nice rubber when I bang it down and take off.

well then we all hope the noise isn't coming from the tranny or the diff! :driving:

Was the noise there from day 1, or did it appear later? And why isn't everyone else on the forum complaining about the noise? (I have read a thread where someone else had the problem).

I hear it in my car too, just I don't hear it that much. Thanks to being a drummer/guitarist for so damn long ;)

My wife's not said anything about it, so maybe she can't hear it?

I do notice that after I've been in the car for a while (longer drives) that my hearing is just as whacked when I get out of the car an in my house, as when I've been riding my motorcycle for a couple hours, and I've got loud pipes on it.

My Z is stock except for the G3 intake - catback coming soon, and I'll probably go to longtube headers once they are out ;)

after 4,000 miles it kicked in...
turn your head to the right when you are in the car while driving..and you can hear it. It is VERY high pitched frequency so its hard to hear..but your ears will feel it after a while. Turn the radio off. I can't believe this is happening. The entire dealer staff is puzzled and they all know it is a bad fuel pump...they are just realizing it might be with every single car they have. It is in the shop now.

People may not be noticing it yet..but they will.

Guitarist here! My upper-registers are shot, mebbe this is a non-issue for me, lol. My passengers are on their own :icon17:.

I hear it but it doesn't bother me. I haven't had any fuel related problems with my car, but I do know that the noise must be coming from the fuel pump. I guess for some reason they couldn't make a quiet one. I hear it especially when I turn my car off and then it goes away after a few seconds. No one else riding w/ me has heard it so I guess mine isn't as bad as others or else I just have a higher tolerance.

Probably has to do a lot with age as well. Hearing in the upper frequencies decreases pretty progressively with age. My 55 year old father cannot hear anything above 11kHz, while I can hear up to around 17~19kHz. That is a pretty broad range, especially for "high-pitched noises."

I hear very well for my age...and I'm not even that old.

I hear it but it hasn't bothered me so far.

Most of us have heard it's some bad wiring in the ECU. Try starting the car in the morning when it's cold outside and you haven't used it for the whole night. You should be able to drive around for a few minutes without hearing it at all. All of a sudden, when you press down the gas pedal a few millimeters, it starts making the noise after a few minutes. It's at one specific spot when the accelerator is pressed. After the car warms up in about 4-5 minutes, it does it constantly and your ears feel like they're going to fall off of your head. (That's if your hearing is okay.) Search for "high pitched noise" on the forum and you'll see what others are dealing with. G37 coupes are doing this as well.

Had a hearing test for the gov't a few months ago...sat in a egg shell room and passed with 100% hearing..as if I were born yesterday. I wish I had bad hearing and it wouldn't bother me. NISSAN needs to figure this out. My dog hates riding in the car now..lol.

Other related threads:

http://www.the370z.com/nissan-370z-g...pitch-arg.html

http://www.the370z.com/nissan-370z-g...rear-area.html

This started on my car at 8000 miles after 6 months of ownership, and it gets worse the longer it goes on.

Its not the fuel pump or the transmission, its the ECU. Apparently the G37 has the problem too and Nissan/Infiniity does not seem very motivated to fix the issue.

There have been several threads on the subject on this board, search "high pitch" and you will find them. heres one:

http://www.the370z.com/nissan-370z-g...nger-side.html

If you turn your head to the left to look out the mirror, you hear it in your right ear. The noise is easily heard over AM talk radio, but most FM will drown it out. However if you listen to AM or if you turn the radio off you will hear the noise for an hour or two after leaving the car.

I am taking my car to the dealer next week and demanding they fix it, if they don't I am going to a lemon law attorney. My main problem with it is 1) it shouldn't be happening and 2) its getting worse.

WOW...I'm going to actually get a hearing test done..if there is damage (using my previous test as a baseline) I know I have a case.

whats the manufacture date on yours?

YES YES YES!! Tiger is right! His technique is exactly right! You can really hear it especially loudly when you look left. Your ears do ring for quite awhile when getting out of the car. That can't be good. I love this car except for that problem. I have an '09 Infiniti FX35 that doesn't make that noise. I bought my car in Feb. I don't feel like walking outside to check my exact build date. I would think it was buit in late Fall of '08.

No one has mentioned the HID lights ballast. The Xenon lights are High Intensity Discharge lights which require a high voltage, which is created by a ballast. Modern day ballasts are electronic (sometimes also referred to as digital) and can operate at frequencies in the 10s of kilohertz range. From the research I've done it looks like most vehicle HID ballasts operate in the 450hz range, which is more along the lines of bass than a high pitched sound, however, if the ballast does in fact operate at a higher frequency and there's a grounding issue the noise could possible show up in a variety of places. The most likely would be speakers.

While the fuel pump is a likely problem, I'm not sure it would create a resonance frequency of around 20khz, the frequency where human hearing cutoffs and appears to be the sound that people are hearing.

If the ECU is also operating at a frequency in the same range it could also create the problem if there's a grounding problem, it's just that ECU's operate at a low voltage and I would think it's too small to create the issue at hand.

This is all speculation and guesses, but figured I'd throw it out there.

after spending some time reading about it here and on various G37 sites, I don't think there's any question its the ECU. On some Infinity sites it said the dealers tried to fix it by wrapping the ECU in sound deadening material, but did not do it too much so that it would overheat. Results were so-so. On threads on this site some posters have had the dealers diagnose it as the ECU. Its the ECU.

Simple solution, take out the ECU and see if it goes away :happydance:

BULLETIN POSTED ------------------------------------------
ECU being replaced....NICE !!!!

I hope you're joking. If you're not joking then it is people like you that have given America a "mad litigation label".

of course i'm joking

I have 1800 miles on my car and no noises or rattles.

Bought my Z back in Jan and never really heard it myself. However, my girlfriend hears it and it drives her crazy. I probably can't hear it due to working out in the flightline for 3+ years. Jet engine noise > car engine noise.

Nissan has a few bugs to sort out, it seems. They've corrected some/most of the 350 ones, but new ones are popping up in the 370. They should hire a Toyota engineer to help 'em with it!
__________________________________________________ __________________________________________________ ____________
Bone stock '04.5 Touring Coupe: No feathering, no starting issues, no oil-consumption issues, flawless AT...S-w-e-e-t ride!

explain...

Hi-
Thanks for the info.
I have a 2009 EX35 JOURNEY AWD with full electronics/nav/Bose package.
Just yesterday the high pitch whining began on my ride home from work. I have excellent hearing so it is extremely distracting and irritating.
I immediately hit the Net and found a boat load of posts. It seems that you nailed the fix.
I of course called my dealer - Infiniti of Englewood - and needless to say the service manager "never" heard of this issue.
I called the finance manager whom I have a good rapport with and simply insisted that they order an ECU replacement. Overall, I am mostly pleased with the car but it clearly has some blatant shortcomings such as poor gas mileage (which I kind of expected) and poor seat warmers. The back hatch should be automatic too.
If the FX35 was more in the ballpark for me - I would have just bought that instead.
I did not expect a perfect product but 1700 miles is a bit on the early side to begin the process of working out the annoying bugs and ticks.[/B]

Hi-
Thanks for the info.
I have a 2009 EX35 JOURNEY AWD with full electronics/nav/Bose package.
Just yesterday the high pitch whining began on my ride home from work. I have excellent hearing so it is extremely distracting and irritating.
I immediately hit the Net and found a boat load of posts. It seems that you nailed the fix.
I of course called my dealer - Infiniti of Englewood - and needless to say the service manager "never" heard of this issue.
I called the finance manager whom I have a good rapport with and simply insisted that they order an ECU replacement. Overall, I am mostly pleased with the car but it clearly has some blatant shortcomings such as poor gas mileage (which I kind of expected) and poor seat warmers. The back hatch should be automatic too.
If the FX35 was more in the ballpark for me - I would have just bought that instead.
I did not expect a perfect product but 1700 miles is a bit on the early side to begin the process of working out the annoying bugs and ticks.[/B]

I've just recently experienced this. It started out of no where. However, I was able to pull over, shut down the car, and start it back up and it the sound disappeared. Is there really a bulletin for a warranty replacement?

I already took my Z in to get the high pitched noise from the front, now it's coming from the back of the car, another ECU problem, i am so frustrated.

I had the ECU replaced and it fixed the high pitched noise in the front, now it's happening again from the back of the car. I wish Nissan would be more proactive in fixing this problem. I miss too much work bringing it in and out of the dealership taking up my time fussing/proving over these things just to get it fixed. My 2009 370Z is already at 45k and my warrenty is going to run out soon.

Poor Sarah :( hope they fix it soon.

How does this noise sound like? No wonder my right ear is developing a hearing problem.. hahaha

The only sound I tend to hear, but it doesn't bother me at all and is not high pitched enough to hurt my ears is this humm when I accelerate slowly. It sounds like KITT. Or like if I had a turbo. But I only hear it while crawling the car. I don't hear it in hard accelrations, stand stills or cruising above 15mph.but when I shut off the car. It humms as its turning off. Sounds cool to me. Lol

Well, the dealership can't hear it - won't fix it. Don't know what to do, feel like i'm going crazy, maybe they will figure it out in time but I'm trading it in before my warrenty goes out.

my heart is officially broken, i love driving the car, but I hear the noise and i don't care if the dealership thinks i'm crazy.

On a very smooth road going 30-40mph (not frequently) I can hear a faint high pitch sound from the rear, can't tell if it corellates with throttle - if it does, and it gets louder over time, then it's likley the rear diff. If not, then it can be the fuel pump. It can also be wind noise, do you notice it at certain speeds? Bearings tend to make a growling noise.

I have ridden in one 370Z, and driven a few. I have no clue what you guys are talking about and I have heard plenty of wheel-bearings/diffs that are a bit "off". I heard nothing of the sort in any of the 370'z.

People say this, but in my experience they make a "warbling" whine to a shrill whine that is load-dependent, modified by accel/decel and loading/unloading in corners.

I noticed a noise after I put my head unit in. I think it is some interference with the antenna or something. Can't really tell once the car is running.

i know what sarah is saying. it's a very audible high pitch sound. like when you turn on a old CRT TV. the car i test drove first had it and i was joking about it to the sales guy. he said he couldn't hear it. it might be because he was sitting in the passenger seat and the noise is audible in certain areas in the car.

the car i bought did not have this sound when i test drove it...and to this day does not have it. i think there was a TSB out for this. do a search.