The wind noise from "the side view mirrors" conclusions.

I made a post about wind noise from the door areas a while back and never gave any conclusions, so though I would.

So in my tacoma and every other 2nd gen I have ever ridden in, there is wind noise coming from what sounds like the rear view mirrors, noticeable the loudest at speeds over 55 or 60. Some people don't care or ever even notice but others find it bothersome.

Well I pretty much located its sources. There are a few, and none of them are the side mirrors. The sound (a lot of it) comes from elsewhere and bounces around the inside of the door and you hear it from near the mirrors with the door panel on. If the door panel is off there is no noise coming from there.

Source #1 is the door handles.

By its design the door handles in our trucks leaves some large openings directly into the door. Also, the force of the door handle when it pulls itself shut is insufficient to make a complete seal with the gasket and against the metal of the door. This is noticeable when inspecting the gaskets with a flashlight from the inside.

This is where the most violent fluttering part of the noise comes from. It is very loud when driving without the door panel on.

I fixed this by precisely applying some weather stripping which I cut and fashioned (to be extremely thin) myself on top of the gaskets to give them a better seal and then fixing a strip to seal between the handle and the lock where there is a large gap into the door.

Source #2 was actually from the front fender.

There is a rubber gasket that runs up in the door frame between the front fender and the cab. You see it when you open the door.

Well it is only on there by some plastic snaps in the middle. When you get going fast air from the fender and bumper get on the front side of it and blow right through the gaps between it and the metal, and the wind also pushes it right up at high speed and makes wind blow all under the door and around in front of it making a 'wind tunnel' kind of sound with the panel off. ''

I haven't fully solved this, I did tack it down with some silicone here and there and it helped somewhat, but I need to get the door off to really secure it and I'm not sure if I am going to.

Source # 3

This was the weather stripping that the window closes into. I found two problems with it.

First off, the way it was installed from the factory it wasn't pulled down tightly along the window track. Taking the speaker out you can see the bottom of it, pulling it down with force with the window down helped out a bit. Also you can put something behind the stripping right here to eliminate the window being loose when it’s down.

Also there is a place where the weather stripping comes off the track inside the door and goes into the frame of the door where you can see it in the front of the window at the side view mirrors.

The way the weather stripping is made there is a gap where it comes off the track and offers no support to close the gap, so there isn’t a good seal at a place just inside the door.

I just put some stripping behind the weather stripping and closed the gap.


There are a couple other little sources but these are the bigger ones.

The one from the door handle is extremely loud with the door panel off and I can't believe they left the design the way it is.

One other source is the gap between the hood and the A-pillar which channels wind right down in the front of the door.



I just couldn't find where it was the actual side view mirrors. The noise was still there with them covered and with them off.



*I know the noise doesn't even bother most people, and is comparable to many other vehicles. I put a lot of sound deadening in though and the wind noise stood out like a sore thumb after I couldn't hear anything else and I wanted to get rid of it so I went to investigating*

 

Thanks for your time invested in this situation.

I am going to check my truck out this weekend with this information.

Wind noise bothers me, expecially in a cross wind while parked.

I am searching tonight for "rattle noise in rear doors, access cab". I think I might have a speaker loose...I have eliminated seatbelts, tire jack, tools, stc.

 

Ha - I've was driving around for 3 days lst week trying to track down a rattle. Sounded like it was coming from behind the seat. It was driving me crazy. Took everything out from under the seat, jack, tools, whatever else. Turned out it was the sunvisor right in front of my face wasn't clipped in and was rattling. Doh.

I want to do the sealing and weatherstripping for wind noise but I'm afraid of what else I'll be able to hear once I do it. The old "just turn up the radio" effect. The damn ticking fan on low is bad enough.

 

I thought the wind noise was from my OEM rack but they're folded in all the time. Thanks for the info, gave me a lot to think about. I was also thinking of putting some sound deadening material too but on the roof because I thought it was my rails. I really didn't want to do it because it has the side curtain airbags up there and I didn't want to mess them up. Now I can look elsewhere to make it a little bit quiter.

 

Just so you guys know, to conclude even more (Found some more after I posted this)​

A bit of the loud wind noise does come from openings on the bottom of the rear view mirror, there is a screw hole and a cap over two more screws, covering all of that so it is flush (I used black electrical tape that blended right in as a temporary solution) calmed the noise a bunch. ​

More noise also comes from the side view mirror but I don't know how to fix it without an in channel vent visor (which, with a little help, solved all that).​

Also after further experimenting I no longer think my "Source #2" is significant enough to worry about.​

 

Thanks Zombie for sharing your investigations.
I am interested in diminishing cab noise weather by inside or outside the cab applications.

Just FYI and others, more weather stripping / wind noise issues addressed at this thread:

http://www.tacomaworld.com/forum/2nd-gen-tacomas/57536-soundproofing-wind-noise.html

 

I only had my truck a few days when i had my cap installed. There seems to be more wind noise now with the cap on. Anyone else here notice this? I am thinking it might be comming from the back window, air getting between the cab and the cap at highway speeds???

 

I noticed same, increase of wind noise at Cab/Cap void.
Most Cab wind noise seems to be at back bottom behind seat.
I plan to add sound deadener or fiberfill between plastic and metal there.

 

has anyone tried folding the mirrors in and going for a drive?

 

Hey Subzombie, I have a 2010 DC, also with lots of wind noise. Looked at a lot of your comments on this forum and was wondering if you could summarize and tell me the 2 most effective mods you did to reduce wind noise with your truck. I'm a little confused about the side mirrors being a source of noise--that's where the noise seems to come from on my truck. Thanks!

 

Rep to OP... you gave me another excuse to take the door panels off and poke around

 

I'm pretty sure a lot of the noise is coming from the back of the cab, if you are driving in the rain and look out the back window you will see water blowing straight up behind the cab

 

I did and it only lowers the noise a small amount... like 10%. I put closed cell foam between my mirror and door to seal it better... removed 10-20% of the noise. The rest is poor sealing on the leading edge of the weather stripping.

 

I don't hear any wind noise, but then again I worked on the shooting range for 1.5 years, so I'm partially deaf

 

This noise was driving me crazy as well in my 2011 DC so with some experimentation I determined that it was in fact coming from the side mirror. After taping it up and a test drive at 65mph to come to the conclusion, I ran a bead of silicon around where the mirror swivels and also up along the front of the black cover where it attached to the door. Got rid of 75% of the noise, now it is somewhat tolerable.
Can't swivel the mirror but never did anyway.

 

Just to add an easy idea. I pulled off the black plastic triangular piece from the inside of the door that covers the side view mirror mount. I layed it face down and filled the backside with silicone from a caulking gun. Let it set up and reinstalled them.

The cured silicone adds mass which limits the transfer of vibrations (noise) so any noise created by turbulence around the big elephant-ear mirror assemblies is supressed somewhat.

That gap (as mentioned by Snipe) between bed and cab is probably the biggest problem our trucks have. Seems like limiting the airflow between there or dampening the backside of the cab would make the greatest contribution to a silent cab. I notice a considerable difference whether my back seat is up (covering the back wall) or down.

 

Thanks for the tips on where to find the wind noise. I put painters tape around my door handles yesterday and drove it. Wow, it made a huge difference in lowering the wind noise so this is definitely the first place I want to work on.

One question, what did you use for the weather stripping you used to help seal around the door handles and where did you get it?

 

I am having the same problem. Toyota wants to take off my front windshield and replace that. Its not coming from my front windshield and is coming from drivers side window. Waiting to see if Toyota will do the research and see its the drivers side window. I will be contacting toyota Corp.