Hi,
I went for my second test drive for TCH in an out of town dealer to test it on the highway. I noticed the road noise was louder than the first time I tried it. Speed was at around 60mph/100kmph. The first time I tried it, it was extremely quiet.

IIRC, I believe it was a little noisy leaving the dealership.


Anyways, my question is, is it normal? Do any of you guys experience a rather loud road noise while driving on the highway?

How about city vs rural roads? I believe that might be a problem also.

I'm trying to find another one to test drive just to confirm if it was the car or just that car's problem.

Thanks.

 

The TCH is the quietest car I've owned. In fact in Consumer Reports they said the hybrid was very quiet. However, with the JBL sound system it could be noisy and I wouldn't know it.

 

Absolutely not for cruising, should be very quiet. Accelerating quickly to hiway speeds will sound quite a bit different than a regular car as the engine is maintained at a fairly high somewhat consistant RPM whereas a regular car's rpm would move thru a range.

 

I find the car itself to be very quiet, except when accellerating quickly. I don't know where you are located, but I have noticed that when driving on the concrete roads in PA the road noise (not car noise) is much louder than regular asphalt roads. I think this difference is more noticable in the TCH because the car itself is so quiet.

 

I've also run into some high road noise conditions, but it's only with specific road surfaces. It's super quiet most of the time, but certain roads seem to have a vibrational frequency that just resonates with something. Some areas of the Northeast Extension of the PA Turnpike did this last week.

I've run into the same thing on a number of other cars, too, not just the TCH. (I rent about 40 different cars a year, so I have lots of opportunites to gather such data!) But, the specific surface that's troublesome seems to be different for different cars, perhaps because of different sympathetic vibrational frequencies.

 

Hmm...tough decision.

Thanks for the replies, it has been informative. Gonna go to the dealer tonight to see if they have another one in.

 

At around 1280miles mine is still as quiet as the day I picked it up. As an owner of only American cars and trucks prior to the TCH I have to say it’s the quietest car I’ve ever driven. Even when I had the chance to push it to around 105mph this past weekend on an undisclosed highway heading back to the dealer in NY it was extremely quiet.

I do notice however that the CVT, when you accelerate hard, will let the engine rev pretty high. In the Escape we have at work I’ve seen the tach go over 5000rpm when I’m passing someone or whatever, but in the TCH there’s no tach so you can just go buy the engine noise which is still very muffled compared to the Escape.

As far as road noise goes, I guess there’s nothing you can really do to escape the terrible condition of the roads around here. You still here every expansion joint in those concrete highways like 295 but even still its no where near as loud as with my old Ford Taurus.

Overall I’d say that unless you shell out the 50+ thousand dollars for the Lexus hybrid, you’re not going to find a much quieter vehicle.

 

I find my car quiet, not the quietest I have owned, but not bad. My complaint is the noise from the windows on freeways. It is quite noisy almost as noisy was my Ford Taurus. Are your cars noisy too or do I need to have the dealer check my windows? The car engine is noisy when accelerating hard - typical of a 4 banger. My 6 was quiet.

 

I couldn't hear a fire truck this afternoon, with my stereo on, even though the truck's siren was going off. LOL.

 

You should have your door seals and/or window seals checked by the dealer. I have cruised on the highway at 80 MPH and got virtually no noise form the doors or windows.

There is some tire noise on concrete roadways(especially worn out ones) at high speeds, but again very quiet on asphalt highways.