[CKau]

Originally Posted by TonyS

I think you may be right here. I don't have any noticeable wind noise from the doors, but my doors do fit flush and do need a bit of a pull to close them properly (passengers often don't close them first try) which makes me think that the door seals are being compressed and working as they should. I do find the "2 or 3 tries to close the doors" issue a little annoying but most of the other BMWs I'd had have been the same and I'd rather have that than the wind noise.

I would rather doors that are tough to shut as well. I am sitting at the service centre right now and hope they can tighten up the doors. See how it goes tonight.

[CKau]

Whilst I've made a comment in the wind noise thread I thought to make a "final" update here... it worked!! After having the remaining 3 doors tightened, my car is really quiet now! I was sooo happy on the drive home from the service centre that this road noise saga is over. I drove over multiple types of road surfaces (except for really coarse tarmac).

To make it clear, I can now push on all four doors hard against the chassis and none now have any movement. I think that's what you should check for if you believe you have excessive road noise.

The other update is, as predicted, BMW did not want to fit the seal on the diesel model to my car. They couldn't get a part number for starters. They then said it's not part of the manufacturing build and would be a retrofit than a warranty item.

Anyway, if ever a part number was released, I'd take my car back to the dealer that I bought the car from & insist on the retrofit for free.

Just so you know how good the cabin is after the door adjustment, when I drive past concrete walls, I don't hear any sound "bounce back". Tunnels are quieter. Rough road surfaces generate barely any additional noise to smooth roads.

I don't want to remove the sound proofing I added to the wheel arches, nor the square aperture in the suspension turret, nor the fender gap as I feel the sound proofing will go backwards.

I will dare to say that the car is now quieter in some respects than my old Mk6 Golf Comfortline. The one area where it isn't is I still get some "wind noise" which, I theorise, is from the thinner side window glass.

However, the areas where the 328i is better than the Golf are proofing against "rebounded sound" i.e. rebounded sound from underneath the car from driving over rough & painted surfaces and rebounded sound from the sides when driving past concrete walls.

Anyway, in 45 mins I plan on driving on some of the roughest roads in the area to see how the car stands up. I'm 99.99% confident I'll be happy :-) All these improvements have brought enjoyment back into BMW ownership. Wish the car was like this when I first bought it.

[TonyS]

Originally Posted by CKau

Whilst I've made a comment in the wind noise thread I thought to make a "final" update here... it worked!! After having the remaining 3 doors tightened, my car is really quiet now! I was sooo happy on the drive home from the service centre that this road noise saga is over. I drove over multiple types of road surfaces (except for really coarse tarmac).

To make it clear, I can now push on all four doors hard against the chassis and none now have any movement. I think that's what you should check for if you believe you have excessive road noise.

The other update is, as predicted, BMW did not want to fit the seal on the diesel model to my car. They couldn't get a part number for starters. They then said it's not part of the manufacturing build and would be a retrofit than a warranty item.

Anyway, if ever a part number was released, I'd take my car back to the dealer that I bought the car from & insist on the retrofit for free.

Just so you know how good the cabin is after the door adjustment, when I drive past concrete walls, I don't hear any sound "bounce back". Tunnels are quieter. Rough road surfaces generate barely any additional noise to smooth roads.

I don't want to remove the sound proofing I added to the wheel arches, nor the square aperture in the suspension turret, nor the fender gap as I feel the sound proofing will go backwards.

I will dare to say that the car is now quieter in some respects than my old Mk6 Golf Comfortline. The one area where it isn't is I still get some "wind noise" which, I theorise, is from the thinner side window glass.

However, the areas where the 328i is better than the Golf are proofing against "rebounded sound" i.e. rebounded sound from underneath the car from driving over rough & painted surfaces and rebounded sound from the sides when driving past concrete walls.

Anyway, in 45 mins I plan on driving on some of the roughest roads in the area to see how the car stands up. I'm 99.99% confident I'll be happy :-) All these improvements have brought enjoyment back into BMW ownership. Wish the car was like this when I first bought it.

That's great news CKau, pleased for you that you've got it sorted, and a big thank you for all the information and "how-to's" that you've taken the time to document here.

[CKau]

Just come back from the drive and the car held up well to the worst roads. The worst did have loud roar coming through the suspension, but it is now sounds "isolated" and is bearable. Prior to this the roar on the worst roads was downright annoying and stressing.

Pretty much on par with most other cars i have driven. Might be noisier than a MB on the worst of roads, but i bought this expecting it to be noisier in these conditions.

On average it's way better than before. On the worst of surfaces it isnt "rudely or obscenely" loud any more, but controlled.

[Frogman]

Originally Posted by CKau

Just come back from the drive and the car held up well to the worst roads. The worst did have loud roar coming through the suspension, but it is now sounds "isolated" and is bearable. Prior to this the roar on the worst roads was downright annoying and stressing.

Pretty much on par with most other cars i have driven. Might be noisier than a MB on the worst of roads, but i bought this expecting it to be noisier in these conditions.

On average it's way better than before. On the worst of surfaces it isnt "rudely or obscenely" loud any more, but controlled.

The back edge of my front doors definitely stick out about 2mm from front edge of my back doors and I can easily push the front doors in more.

I also plan on taking it in and having the doors adjusted, I just have not had time to do that yet. Maybe next week.

Thanks again for being so tenacious on this. As you say, I don't expect a totally silent car, but I don't expect it to sound like a 1950's truck with all of the rubber seals deteriorated away.

The mods you suggests so far have definitely helped, I just need to get the whooshing sound around the door glass reduced and I'll be a happy camper.

[Kowboi]

Originally Posted by JPC Moose

Since this is our first BMW, I'm not sure if it is normal tohear road noise so loud that to drown it out we have to turn the music up. 328I Sport

Do you have run flat tires? I find they are three times as loud as normal tires. Also the run flats are stiff and less forgiving. You feel every bump in the road.

[CKau]

Originally Posted by Frogman

I just need to get the whooshing sound around the door glass reduced and I'll be a happy camper.

I know what you mean. As I've written earlier, the problem with getting noises fixed is that it unmasks the remaining residual noise sources that remain.

It bugged me that I've come so close, yet remain so far. It's only on certain rough surfaces that I still hear some kind of sound vibration permeating into the cabin... kinda like the aircraft fuselage noise. When the road surface changes to something smooth, that noise goes.

Now that the other noise sources have been removed, it's annoying how it's there. I'm not sure if it's the same noise as yours, but here goes (and I know your door adjustment did nothing).


As a very simple experiment, I leaned forward in my seat on the rough road surfaces and noticed that I didn't hear the tyre roar like I did when I sat back into my backrest.

Even though my doors have been adjusted it lead me to believe that tyre roar is still somehow getting into the cabin.

I recalled being disappointed at how large the panel gaps are in BMW's. Even the Korean & Japanese cars don't have large gaps like we do. I cringe when I re-watch the F30 being manufactured and seeing how big a gap the foreman accepts when he uses his spacing tool.

So I theorised that the gap between the bottom part of the doors, being larger than on most other cars, must be responsible for it. I think the door cavity is channeling the tyre roar up the bloody b-pillar!

When I took the following measures, I was proven right!

Here's some pics of what I did....

First I upgraded my car to the standard of most other 21st century cars... I placed some "d" profile sound proofing rubber to the join between the front and rear doors


I placed the seal on the front edge of the rear door with the "d" facing rearward.



Did the same on the rear edge of the front door (which overlaps the front edge of rear door) this time with the "d" facing forward i.e. the opposite direction (see blue arrow).



I purchased some foam and placed two layers on the bottom edge of the front door. I placed it so that the flat machined edge is flush with the bottom edge of the door. Note the first layer does not block the drains in the door.



When you shut the door, the foam doesn't protrude out, but you can see it does fill that whopping big 2-3mm gap that BMW left along the bottom edge of the door.

I then stuck another layer on top of the first to fill as much of the cavity as possible where the bottom edge shuts. You will see what I mean... if you open the front door and inspect the bottom edge of the rear door you will see how much of a gap there is between door & chassis, as well as bottom edge of door & sill.


I think the foam along the bottom edge contributed the bulk of the sound reduction.

Rather than get lazy, I also sealed the rear door with rubber seal along the side edge



Likewise inserted two layers of foam along the bottom edge of the rear doors.



To ensure I was absolutely happy, I put some foam along the upper side of the front door just behind where the plastic strip will touch the rubber of the front edge of the rear door. I also cut an old bicycle tyre tube & taped it to ensure a tight seal.



Frogman, hope this helps you. Hopefully it will & you can enjoy the quiet.

After road testing my latest mod, I honestly think I'm done now :-)

[Frogman]

Sorry it's taken so long to respond to your excellent post. Here's my update:

I tried most of what you did here and many, many other things and I was ultimately not able to reduce the wind noise by any noticeable amount.

Unfortunately, the noise varies greatly day to day and it's really hard to pin down. Wind noise seems to increase with rougher roads, and sometimes totally disappears on really smooth roads, but not always. Plus, any kind of cross-wind seems to almost always cause a LOT of noise. I'm also now hearing the most noise from the A-pillar area more than anywhere else, but it's hard to locate because it's pretty low frequency noise.

I ended taking out all of my sound reducing things (wheel wells, brake line hole plugs, front door panel gap, foam around the doors, etc) just to see if that was really helping. I didn't really notice any difference after removing all of it.

I've since driven in other F30's that are much quieter than mine, so I really don't think those things were really helping me anyway as none of the other F30's had any of that stuff.

I also realized that I've spent way to much time trying to fix this myself, but not to give up, I decided to change direction.

I've reported this issue 3 times to my current (selling) dealer and they just continue to tell me that it's "normal"; In other words: "go away", so I did.

I was due for my mid-cycle oil change anyway (I'm changing it every 7500 miles), so I went to another local dealer that others had recommended to me.

I described the wind noise I was experiencing to the SA and related the unsatisfactory results I had at the other dealer and that I would switch my future business to him if he can resolve this issue for me.

When I got the car back, he reported that the technician replicated the issue (that by itself is farther than I ever got before) and that it's most likely the A-pillar drip molding and weak clips. The SIB he mentioned was 51 04 13.
(I had seen several other post here reporting that this fix resolved their wind noise issue too. I mentioned this *exact* thing to the original dealer 3 times, but each time the technician just reported that they looked fine.)

Anyway, they had the moldings in stock, but there are apparently new blue colored clips that need to be used now and they had to be ordered.

I'll post the results of this (fixed or not) sometime late next week after I get the new parts installed.

[1bad335]

Thanks frogman for keeping us up to speed. I am in a love /hate relationship with my 335 as well. Some days she is so quiet it's great and other times it is beyond annoying. I too noticed that road surfaces seem to greatly influence the level of noise I hear. I did switch out my RFT's to General Gmax's and I did notice a great improvement but never the less on certain cement roads and at higher speeds the noise is there. Hope the latest fix they're trying works out. Thanks again.

[Frogman]

The parts came in and I had the new dealer perform drip moulding repair yesterday.

I drove it home this morning and man, what a difference!

There is still of course some road noise and I can still hear some slipstream sound as expected, but the whooshing/buffeting/open-window sound is now totally GONE.

It's so much quieter than before. I'm just disappointed that it took me so long to get it repaired. I asked my original dealer three time to to replace the moulding and each time they refused and just said "it looks fine to us". The problem isn't the outside of the moulding, it's the interface against the windshield and the clips holding the moulding in place.

The parts installed were:

51 13 7 321 818 B1-Clip (Qty 10)
51 31 7 258 187 B1-Drip moulding, left (1)
51 31 7 258 188 B1-Drip moulding, right (1)


The moulding looks a bit different, it has a little flange at the bottom that looks like it's some type of reinforcement. My original moulding didn't have this flange.



Close up:
(The top of the photo is by the hood)



Thanks again for all the help and support.

[TonyS]

Frogman, out of curiosity what was your build date? I've checked my car and it has the little flange, and I have no wind noise. Build date was August 2012.

Ok, just seen elsewhere that yours is an April 2012 build.

[Frogman]

Originally Posted by TonyS

Frogman, out of curiosity what was your build date? I've checked my car and it has the little flange, and I have no wind noise. Build date was August 2012.

Ok, just seen elsewhere that yours is an April 2012 build.

Yes, my build date is April 4th, 2012.

[TonyS]

Originally Posted by Frogman

Yes, my build date is April 4th, 2012.

It would be interesting to know if others who don't have the wind noise also have the moulding with the flange.

[xit2050]

Originally Posted by Frogman

The parts installed were:

51 13 7 321 818 B1-Clip (Qty 10)
51 31 7 258 187 B1-Drip moulding, left (1)
51 31 7 258 188 B1-Drip moulding, right (1)

Weird thing is that I just did a search for these part numbers on realoem and the clips appear only as parts for the F34.

Do you have a copy of the document explaining the findings and work performed by the dealer? If so, could you please post a scan?

Glad you got it fixed, I'm still at the point where the dealer insists everything is fine...

[CKau]

Originally Posted by TonyS

It would be interesting to know if others who don't have the wind noise also have the moulding with the flange.

I have no wind noise and do have the flange. The noises i eliminated were all tyre roar noises getting into the car.

Frogman... Thx for the pix of the flange

[Frogman]

Originally Posted by xit2050

Weird thing is that I just did a search for these part numbers on realoem and the clips appear only as parts for the F34.

Do you have a copy of the document explaining the findings and work performed by the dealer? If so, could you please post a scan?

Glad you got it fixed, I'm still at the point where the dealer insists everything is fine...

I feel your pain; I tried 3 times with my local dealer to get them to replace the drip molding, but they refused each time. Going to another dealer fixed the problem on my first attempt. Do you have another dealer you can try?

I'm not surprised the clips don't show up for the F30, the tech said they needed to order the new blue colored clips, so they must be some kind of improved clip that just became available.

Here is a scan of the Diagnosis and Repair notes. There are two because they had to order parts.

Diagnosis:




Repair:




Hope this helps!

[Frogman]

Originally Posted by CKau

I have no wind noise and do have the flange. The noises i eliminated were all tyre roar noises getting into the car.

Frogman... Thx for the pix of the flange

Agreed. Now that the wind bufetting noise issue has been addressed, I may look at putting back some of the things I did before to see if I can reduce the road noise a bit. It's not critical to me, I'm ok with it as is...

[xit2050]

Originally Posted by Frogman

Hope this helps!

Thanks, I'll keep you posted with the result.

Getting tired of all these visits to the dealer, think I'll wait until the car is due for service in about a month.

BTW, does anyone have a copy of SIB 51-04-13?

[Mamasgotkids]

I've noticed my wind/road noise growing steadily worse and I've only had the car 9 months (build date March 2012). I can push on my doors when closed and they do give a bit. Over the past month I've had to keep turning the radio up to drown out the noise and to even hear what I'm listening to. It definitely seems excessive even though Seattle roads are some of the worst I've ever experienced (and we've lived all over the US). Our dealer hasn't exactly been the best with the 3 other issues we've also had to have fixed. I'm wondering if its worth fighting with them about it or just sucking it up for the remaining 28 months of my lease.

[CKau]

Ok, what I decided to do was replace some of the soundproofing BMW asked me to remove from the plastic wheel arch. They were concerned that the materials may ignite from the heat from the turbo hose.

When I added the sound material back, I was careful to make sure there was sufficient space between the materials and their beloved hose. Straight away that made a discernible reduction in road noise, but not elimination.

I then took another look to see why and found this gap. It's between the left front plastic wheel arch and the rail that runs along the engine bay. The squares indicate where the gaps are.



I only managed to spot it when my car was parked inside the garage and there was really bright daylight shining from the outside & bouncing off the garage floor through the plastic wheel arch!!

To me, that's basically allowing a lot of road noise into the engine bay and hence the cabin. So I proceeded to stuff some rubber foam from the wheel arch side



The gap between the plastic arch and wheel well seems to be to allow some wires from the suspension and some part in the engine bay. I have the adaptive suspension, so perhaps this gap was left there to allow the cabling.

That might also explain why my car is noisier than the other demo F30s which have the standard suspension.

After plugging the gaps, the car is a lot quieter on coarse surfaces, but I was still not quite happy.

Because the car was a lot quieter, I could zero in on the remaining road noise. It seemed to be coming from the left side doors.

As I documented in the wind noise thread, I was going to experiment with some foam around the windows. My gut feeling was that the rubber guides for the windows were not sealing properly.

I did and this is where I applied the sound insulating foam tape. I applied it in a way that would stop any air pressure and sound leaking through the gaps.



Lo and behold, when I drove over the coarse surfaced roads, the car was significantly quieter yet again!

I'll be showing this to my dealer and asking them to replace the guides. I just hope they don't give me the usual "it's within spec" bull$h1t

Anyway, relieved that the car is now fine (or would be if they fixed the windows). It's as it should have been all along... Including sydney's notoriously noisy concrete/coarse chipped roads (proof... They are resurfacing sydney roads with a quieter tarmac rubber compound)

I then think about how bad the quality control is at the Rosslyn plant. The F30 is noisy in my case because of 3 issues:- doors not shutting tightly, bad quality window guide seals, gaps in the plastic wheel arch & suspension tower. I've also had my left tail light replaced because it fell out and the squeaky exhaust flap replaced.

BMW needs to pick up its game in manufacturing quality. Fingers crossed I don't get any serious mechanical or electrical issues.

[CKau]

As per my post in the wind noise thread, even though the service technicians claimed to find nothing wrong, I was determined to buy some proper foam tape and plug the gap myself.

Well I finally did it... first some observations about why road noise is creeping into the car via the windows.

The window seal is fixed to the door frame indicated by the red up arrow. The edge of the seal that forms the recess (indicated by the yellow right arrow) makes contact with the window. The section of seal on the other side of the fixing point (indicated by the left green arrow) has no function.



I observed that as the window slides upwards, the recess section (yellow arrow) is pressed downwards. As the seal is fixed around a fulcrum (red arrow), the other side (green arrow) lifts up. You can see this in the photo below



Notice the gap where the window is (indicated by the bottom arrow) has applied pressure so that the gap of the seal on the outside edge has lifted up. If you look at the top arrow, the gap is smaller indicating no pressure.

As the window moves upwards, I noticed that the outer edge (green arrow) of the seals on the drivers side of the car (right side) created more of a gap than the windows on the left side. In other words, the left side windows are not applying as much pressure on the recess portion of the seal (yellow arrow) which creates less lift on the outside edge (green arrow). That correlates with my observation the road noise seems to be permeating from the left side of the car.

I purchased some self adhesive neoprene rubber tape. Dimensions are 3mm thick, 18mm wide.

I applied it so that the edge of the neoprene rubber tape just touches the glass






I applied it to both the left front and rear window frames




I went for a lovely drive today across all kinds of surfaces. It appreciably reduced the amount of road noise to the point that I can only hear tyre roar coming through the suspension and no road noise via the windows.

Now that I know in detail what is causing the noise problem, I'm stuck between asking the dealer to replace the defective seals on the left side of the car or leaving it alone.

If I insist on having the seals replaced, it may not solve the problem and risk them damaging trim or other body parts. I suspect either the seals are defective or my left side window frames have a manufacturing defect that leave the plastic seat of the seal 1 mm too far from the window. A replacement seal may not do the trick.

Anyway, my theory is vindicated. Hope this helps others. As to whether you try a fix yourself or waste time arguing fruitlessly with a dealer is up to you.

[metrathon]

CKau amazing detective work dude. I'll try the fix next weekend. I hope you're not placeboing