Weird Humming Sound When Switching From EV to ICE Engine

L

Linkmodo

Member
It's been a while since I visited the forum, particularly because my Clarity is so darn reliable... Now almost 70000 miles later, I have to come and ask a question that I hope some other high mileage drivers may have experienced:

When switching from EV to ICE Engine, I can now hear a pretty significant high pitched humming sound that comes on for about half a second, right before ICE Engine kicks in. Never heard of this sound prior to 60000 miles, and only recently noticed that the sound is getting louder and more noticeable.

Does anyone else have this issue and had their car checked by the dealer? I'm kinda worried that since Clarity is out of production and rarely any dealers know how to service it, cost of maintenance and repair might get pretty high pretty soon as I continue to rack up miles. (My commute is 180 miles each day)

Thanks for your help!
 
900 miles commuting per week? Wow, I barely hit 900 miles every 6 weeks! 3-4 hours a day sitting in my car would drive me nuts.
 
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I'm currently running about 2,000 miles a week. This past week I did about 2,700 miles. I'm about 125k miles right now.

I don't have a noise as you describe it.

I do, on occasion, have some "angry bee" issues, where the engine seems to have a mind of its own, sometimes running as high as 4k rpm (I have a ScanGauge II connected) on level ground. I can usually just kick it back to EV mode, wait a minute, then go back to HV mode, and all is back to normal.

One thing that I have noticed is that when engaging HV mode, the engine will "idle" at about 1500 rpm as it warms up. Once the water temperature reaches a certain point, at least 120 degrees Fahrenheit, then the engine will run at higher rpms. I think it is wise to keep the rpms down until the engine has reached an appropriate temperature.

You know... now that I think about it for a minute... I do have "high frequency" hearing loss (comes with getting older!) Maybe I'm just not hearing what you hear!!
 
I do have the issue as described by OP. When the ICE engine kicks on and I am traveling approximately 30 MPH or faster, there is a brief high pitched whining sound. Not sure what it is but clearly related to engine coming on and quite annoying
 
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