Electric cars are known for their ability to pull
away silently and gone of the days of waking the neighbors up when you start your car up in the
morning especially if you're in a tesla model 3. but the lack of engine poses other problems
without the constant drone of engine noise in the background we pick up on other stuff like wind
and road noise and it's been a common complaint amongst tesla owners that the road noise on the
tesla model 3 is excessive there are signs that tesla are doing something about that in the
2021 models but we can't have it both ways we can't have a tesla model 3 that's affordable
and there for the mass market and the luxury that goes along with it because soundproofing
is not cheap but is it even really an issue or is it just in our imagination because there's not
any road noise well in this video we set to find out with a direct comparison to a combustion
car with similar performing stats so a golf r and i've bought a noise reduction kit both for the
roof and the door seal so we'll see if that makes any difference to the decibels and thanks to the
viewer tom that suggested the door seals because i didn't even know that was a thing until he'd
wrote that in the comments so thanks for that one so before we get on to the wind reduction kit as
promised i said would compare the bass line to a combustion car and here it is the golf r so it's
north to 60 is slightly better it runs on 19-inch wheels it's on the road prices significantly less
however it's running costs a lot more and it's also four-wheel drive the tesla model 3 standard
range plus is rear-wheel drive and runs on 18-inch wheels so the Golf R roars when it accelerates
so we've done this test at cruising speed and i'm aware the apple watch probably isn't the most
scientific way to measure it however because it's the same device i reckon the comparisons are going
to be similar so this was the Golf R's internal cabin noise at 40 mile an hour whilst cruising and
then this is the tesla model 3's next we upped it to 60 mile an hour to see if the aerodynamics of the
vehicle altered it at all but as you can see there was no difference so we'll play that again without
me talking so you can listen to the audio yourself [Tone softer in Model 3, but volume the same, Engine noise creates deeper, rough hum in Golf R, but loudness is same] so that did actually surprise me there the
noise in the cabin of both the tesla model 3 and the volkswagen golf was exactly the same
so volume wise exactly the same now you'll have probably noticed the tones were slightly different
and i think that's because the noise coming from the vw was created by the engine whereas the noise
coming from the tesla model 3 was the wind and the road noise so what we can probably take from
that is that the electric vw cars may actually be quieter than model 3 if they apply the sound
sound proofing principles as they do in their golf now before we move on to the main test
of the wind and the noise reduction kit if you haven't done so already don't forget to
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cars so if you're interested in any of those you'd be a fool not to hit that button straight away so
if the noise in the tesla model 3 does bother you what can you do about it well let's find out so
this is the model 3 noise reduction kit that we've got here now it claims it's gonna reduce the wind
noise that goes over the top of the model three and you can see on the panoramic roof we've got a
little bit of a gap around the panels in the glass and the idea of this is that it's just gonna sit
in those panels and make it a nice smooth airflow over the top of the car whether it doesn't
look good or not i'm not sure because it basically looks like just a big elastic band it
costs 11 pound from amazon and we'll have to wait and see whether it does any good or not now it
says it's pretty easy to install and i imagine it is because it is just a rubber band but the idea
is you move to one corner move to the opposite diagonal corner and then just put it in all the
holes so i can't imagine this is going to take very long to put in at all so we'll give it a shot
it's all tangled already which is not a good start so that's the wind reduction kit on i'm not
convinced that's going to make any difference because as you can see by the ridges here there
um there's still a ridge like if you were to run your finger over that it's still not perfectly
smooth so you're still going to get some turbulent airflow at the sides here the panel gaps are so
big that it's actually just disappeared in the panel gaps anyway so i can't see that's going
to make any difference but hopefully with the airflow it's just going to be going straight
over the top and then at the back again i don't know where you can hear that but you can hear my
fingers drop down in the ridge now maybe i've put it too far in so let me know in the comments
if you think i've put it on wrong because the instructions weren't that clear but the problem
is if i didn't put it in deep enough as you can see when i was putting on it was just springing
out so i imagine with a bit of wind resistance it might just spring out as you're driving along
so i think you've got to push it down quite firm but we'll go out and give that a test and see
whether that's made any difference to the wind resistance whatsoever and the wind noise because
there was a little bit of wind around today but not massive amount because it's nice still
winter's day right let's go and give it a test now to make it slightly more scientific i
have downloaded an app for my iphone that measures decibels and on the left hand
side you'll see the original tesla model 3 without any modifications on the right
that's after the wind reduction kit it's all the original audio so not been altered
in post-production or anything like that so i'll shut up i'll let you listen and
see the original footage and compare the two [RUMBLE of road noise, with audio switching between two inputs] [RUMBLE doesn't change as the audio inputs switch between the two examples] [ROAD NOISE just increases with volume as the speed increases] [Slightly less noise or at least different tone at the higher speeds on the Wind reduction audio playback] so that's it for the tesla model 3 wind noise
reduction kit i love the fact it's called that it's just basically a rubber band i have to say i
couldn't really notice a massive difference when i was driving around and the decibel meter supported
that really maybe at the higher speeds the tones were slightly different but the reduction was
probably minimal so i'd say waste of 11 pounds most likely so let's see what effect the door
seals have now with my slightly unorthodox application process i'm aware i'm installing this
controversially but the rationale that i have is the fact that this rubber band is not going to be
big enough to create a seal there so i'm hoping to run the rubber band almost where this dirt line
is here so that it kind of folds over on itself with this flap and then hopefully seals that
gap because i can see on these door frames here that the gap if we just look on this bit here um
the gaps are just too big and i don't think it's going to do a good enough job so the plan is
to go against the manufacturer's instructions which could backfire on me the other reason
why i'm not 100 sure that the way the supplier has told us to put it on is because it
says about cutting for the drainage holes and you'd have just thought that the manufacturer
would have designed it around the drainage holes so this is why i thought i'd give it a shot
if it doesn't work i'll just take it off and the other reason why i just thought this might
be the right way to put it on was because the rim that's kind of like sealed all the way
around is the same width as the adhesive tape which makes me think there's a pattern
there that we need to identify so this is it this is the bit that might
go wrong here this way you should probably follow the instructions of the
manufacturer or the supplier but we'll see maybe that's how you meant to put them on
i actually went a bit low on that because you can see there's a bit of a taper
there so i think these drainage holes should it should just taper off
the top of those drainage holes and then drain out as it normally would
and then it goes from there i think i might have hit the nail on the head there can't
wait to test that and see if that's actually works i'll be amazed if it has especially as every
other single youtube video uh pretty much tells you to do it a completely different way to the
way i've done it in fact even the manufacturer even the suppliers website does so i can't wait
to test that right let's do the other doors um we'll go and do a sound test and i'm gonna do
the other doors the same now that one's worked and it doesn't look completely wrong or catastrophic
then i'm gonna do the other doors exactly the same way because i think that's the way it should go on
so let's see what effect the door seals have now by comparing them all three side by side just to
compare the door seals video actually also has the wind reduction kit on top as well so that's like
the ultimate sound proofing for the tesla model 3. so i'll shut up again i'll let you listen to
the original audio and see what you think to it [Same outcome as earlier test, very little difference between all sounds coming from the different audio inputs] so i'd like to know what your thoughts are on that
because driving around i couldn't really notice a significant difference and the decibel meter
again supports that plus the audio that was being played during it that was all the original audio
that wasn't altered in post-production at all maybe again the tones were slightly different
as we were changing around but i think someone coming from their model 3 which hasn't got noise
reduction on it jumping into my model 3 they're not going to be telling that i've got any extra
noise reduction or soundproofing on my car at all and i know some people are going to say well
he installed it wrong that's the reason it didn't work which i appreciate because i did go against
the suppliers advice but i just don't think their advice would have sealed it correctly around that
door frame and create the tight airtight seal that you're going to need to reduce some of the sound
and as you see over in the clips it was actually like properly up against the paintwork creating a
nice seal around that part i also double checked that it wasn't the vibrations being caused
because i'd attached it to the vehicle itself so i did try recording the noise in the car with
it handheld and attached to the roof as well and there was actually no difference so it wasn't the
vibrations being caused through the phone which i thought might have been a reason that they
were all pretty much identical now i have seen some evidence that these door seals do actually
work but looking at the materials that they use they were substantially thicker rubber than the
ones that i applied to my car so maybe that was the issue that i've had overall though would i
recommend this particular design probably not i can't really tell any difference as i'm driving
around it was maybe a different tone going on and they're not particularly expensive so if it
does really bother you then maybe it's worth the 50 pound but would i do it again if i had
the option no but let me know what you think of my install method and whether that might have
been the cause personally i think in the uk it's not the wind noise that's causing the issue
i think it's the road noise and the quality of our roads is the thing that's affecting it so
all of these kits are actually end up reducing wind noise which probably isn't the issue is the
general sound proofing within the cabin of the car which is going to cost thousands of pounds to
get rid of not 50 pounds but it was worth a try so that's it for this week if you haven't already
done so hit that subscribe button for everything related to tesla's all the software updates they
bring out and when the travel restrictions reduce i've got some exciting road trips i'm planning
as well and if you found that useful please give it a thumbs up because that never goes amiss
thanks for watching i'll see you again next week you
