asadani

Hi All, My 2016 Audi Q5 when driving on a perfect clean new road at exactly 80-90 kms an hour makes a humm noise. If i go faster or a slower the sound is gone.

One of my friends who knows a lot about the car said that this is a differential problem and is expensive to fix it.

I've taken this to Audi service here and they said that its normal and its the sound from the tire.

I'm confused as to what should I do. Any advise?

NorthValley

I used to have a car that made an annoying hum at between 90-95kph...it was the tires. When it came to replacing the tires I had tracking & balancing done and the noise went..not 100% gone but pretty much. You might want to investigate the cheaper option before the expensive one! Good luck!

asadani

Good to know. The car is new. how can I ensure it is the tires. Shouldn't the dealer replace the tires with another one? They said its the tires and its the type of tire that is on the car.

Thanks a lot for your inputs.

BlackSVT

Many times, what you'll find is if it's the tires (or road surface...) it will be "constant" regardless of throttle. In other words, if you slightly accelerate just a little at the speed where it occurs, or alternately, start coasting, the noise will often stay stable for a tire sing/hum. You can also try doing the same thing on a different surface. rain grooving on concrete sounds a lot different than asphalt for example w/certain tires.

If it's differential or something else in the drivetrain, you'll usually hear it get louder or even go away on accel/coast. You can also do the same test in 6th, 7th or 8th at the same offending speed and see if it's any different. Same deal, you are varying the load on the trans, diff, etc and you might hear a big change if it's not tires.

FWIW

asadani

Very Interesting to know. So if I understood you correctly. If the sound is there at the offending speed and goes away if the speed is increased or lowered it may very well be the differential?

If I drive at 120 kms an hour, the sound is 100% gone. Its just perfect on the exact same road. If I drop it down to 80 kms, the sound is clearly there.
When I accel a little bit from say 80 to 85, the sound gets louder and then suddenly disappears at say 90 on the same road.

Thanks so much for your insights.

tomaszp72

Interestingly I'm hearing something similar. It is definitely linked to the acceleration. Seems like it is coming from the back on the driver side. I have a 2013 Q5 3.0T. I took it to the dealer and they couldn't hear anything which I'm not really surprised as you have to drive this car for some time and get used to to different noises to hear it. I will try the suggestion with trying different gears and see what it does.

BlackSVT

It's not so much the change in speed. Ideally, you'd want to keep the same speed with just very, very small throttle changes (either more or less). Gear or bearing noise is usually very dependent on load so it only takes a very fine adjustment to make it increase or decrease while cruising at constant speed. Tire noise is just the tread "singing" against the pavement and won't change unless you REALLY accelerate/brake/turn to deform the tread.

I will say though, some small amount of driveline noise is going to be portrayed as "normal" by the dealer. If you go through all this, decide it is something in the driveline, and they say it's normal, ask to drive another one on the lot and see if it does it as well.

salemDE

i'v read some where that there is something with tire pressure that cause the humming sound, if you try to reduce it could help minimize the noise you hear