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Weird vibrating/buzzing noise

160K views 354 replies 111 participants last post by  Phil Indeblanc 
#1 ·
Hello everyone,

We just recently purchased a new 2015 Highlander Limited and just absolutely love it...except for this weird vibrating/buzzing noise that happens about every 30 seconds to one minute. It is very low key, but you can hear it when things are quiet. It is slowly driving us crazy. We just called the Dealership and they don't have any ideas and just want us to bring it in.

Could it have something to do with our phones being paired? I have not tried driving the vehicle with my phone off.

Has anyone heard this or experienced the issue? I have a feeling it is something simple, but it is annoying as heck.
Thanks!
 
#2 ·
Okay, just tested without the cell phone and that is not it.

The "buzzing" lasts for about a quick second, and it is hard to pin point where it is coming from. One second it seems to be coming from the left front side, then the next time it sounds like it is the right front side!

I am at a loss here...
 
#3 ·
I dont know if mine is the same sound as you, but I just started to hear in the past week or so a small rattling sound in the dash also. I hear it more in the morning somewhere inside the dash and I cannot pin point where it is exactly as it only makes the noise when I am exelerating only. Mine might be a different cause as I have the HL Limited Hybrid and does this when its cold out so far.
 
#9 ·
So my 2015 Highlander is currently at the dealership, they are trying to figure out where the engine/transaxle is leaking oil from... Before that started unfolding I was able to drive around with a technician so he can hear the various rattles and noises this 6 weeks old car has. That buzzing noise was clearly present, and even the tech couldn't pretend he didn't hear it /as he did with the wind noise and other rattles/. He simply stated "I have no clue what this is, I'll have to get in touch with Toyota". I'll let you all know if they figure out what this is.
 
#10 ·
I took mine to the dealer this morning. I am 99% certain it is the Navigation DVD spinning up at certain times. I started the car this morning and heard it spin up right away and recognized the sound instantly. So I think while I am driving the DVD is being accessed and making that noise.

The tech who checked me in agreed that we should not be hearing the sound...so he hopes it is just a software update or something to fix it.

Waiting for them to call me back with good news (hopefully).
 
#12 ·
Further information. It is the Servo motor that kicks on and off to help adjust the temperature. I tested the temp controls and did verify for sure that is what the noise is. Turning on "sync" seemed to help a bit.

Wife is not happy. But hopefully Toyota will address this noise issue at some point.
 
#14 ·
It is the Servo motor that kicks on and off to help adjust the temperature. I tested the temp controls and did verify for sure that is what the noise is. Turning on "sync" seemed to help a bit..hopefully Toyota will address this noise issue at some point.
My new 2015 Limited has the same issue and I was pointed to this thread. Turning on sync doesn't seem to reduce the issue in my vehicle. It is noticeable and quite annoying. I have never had a car on which the climate control made noise other than blowing. My car is scheduled to be looked at by the dealer tomorrow.

It is disappointing that Toyota deems this "normal", and I'd be interested to know just how normal it is. Does anyone have a 2015 which does NOT make this sound? How about 2014?
 
#18 ·
Turning on Sync had resolved the problem for one day. :|
Looking back I think the temperature outside and inside the vehicle were pretty close together so the climate control was not turning on as much.

This is crazy. Toyota needs to address this and fix the problem. It does not bother me as much, but it is driving my wife insane. I can't figure for the life of me how they let this get past quality control.

I am hoping if enough people report it they will do a recall and fix it.
 
#20 ·
Still waiting to hear back from the dealer, but I do have one new observation. The noise seems occur significantly frequently with the heat than the AC. It was warm in NE yesterday and is cold today. The difference in the noise was noticeable. My Highlander actually seems tolerable with the heat on, not the AC though.
 
#21 · (Edited)
Nightmare with Highlander 2015

I have exactly same issue and understand how frustrating and annoying the problem is. By experimenting in many ways, I know this doesn't have anything to do with AC, bluetooth, CD etc. Here is my painful journey so far:

4/17/2015: Bought 2015 Highlander LE Plus from Toyota North Brunswick (NJ) and noticed the buzzing sound after driving only ~30 minutes. The noise was becoming more frequent after driving ~ 1 hour. (120 miles on odometer) My Toyota sales guy says "observe for some time and go to service"

4/21/2015: Coming back from Philly to home (North Jersey), i.e. ~140 min of driving, it was happening about every other second. My sales guy wanted to check first.

4/24/2015: Sales guy came to my home to check early AM, but every time it happened he was using phone or said he didn't hear it. Also I noticed that the symptom wasn't frequent enough in the beginning of driving. So decided to go to service when it gets worse after driving a while.

4/28/2015: Coming back from Philly again, it was another crazy every other second noise. Went to Hackensack Toyota Service. Asked the receptionist not to turn off engine to show the symptom to service adviser, but he turned it off. So the service adviser couldn't hear it, but after driving a little bit, he heard it a few times. But the repair foreman was gone for the day.

4/29/2015: Went to service again to see foreman, he wanted to replace the whole multi media (audio) system to see if it has anything to do with audio system. He added he didn't know what else to do if new audio doesn't solve the problem. On the way home w/ new audio, I heard it again and again but kept telling myself it was from my ocd, not real. But later that night, while driving with my family and friend, every single one in the car said "how can you live with this crazy noise?". I realized that I was not hearing things. From this point, the noise became a major stress to me because I know I can't drive with this noise anymore unless I play music loud all the time.

4/30/2015: Back at service, service dpt manager wanted to test drive another brand new 2015 Highlander to see if this noise is normal or not. (1067 miles on odometer)


I left messages for GM at Toyota Brunswick, but no return call. I wanted to ask if GM has a remedy for this because this problem started from day 1, i.e. pre-existing condition. I wouldn't even talk to GM if this happened after owning the vehicle even a week.

This is my first Toyota, and I learned that even brand new cars can be a nightmare from day 1. I always buy new cars to minimize trips to repair shops, maybe I have been lucky so far cuz prior cars didn't develop any problems for at least several years.

The noise is driving me nuts. I just want to minimize this torture, so I will talk to lemon law lawyer if Toyota doesn't solve this problem soon. If no success w/ lemon law, I am even thinking about selling the vehicle away although it will be financially suicidal, cuz I don't want to lose my sanity. (1067 miles on car as of now)

My service manager will update me soon, I will update you as well.

The noise is almost like sleeping w/ 100 mosquitoes in the same room. If you guys have any update on this matter, please share your experience too. Thank you.

Sleepless in NJ.
 
#23 · (Edited)
Update on my journey

I have exactly same issue and understand how frustrating and annoying the problem is. By experimenting in many ways, I know this doesn't have anything to do with AC, bluetooth, CD etc. Here is my painful journey so far:

I was wrong that this didn't have anything to do with AC. After reading igluck's posting and more experiments, now I am very sure that this noise is coming from air blend servo.

I also learned that the noise is created every time I adjust the temp control, but the problem is that it happens too frequent, up to almost every second after driving a while.

5/4/2015: Service dpt manager said he heard same noise from another HL, so this is NORMAL. I made another visit to the service center. The manager asked me to reproduce the noise frequent enough AGAIN. I failed, but he called Toyota Field Technical Specialist (FTS) and was told that "That noise is NORMAL, FTS is aware of that noise, which happens when the system adjust temp, i.e. live with it." Manager said I was not allowed to talk to FTS directly, but suggested that I record the noise and keep complaining to Toyota directly. For now, manager can't do anything because FTS won't approve any fix, even if I kept explaining that the problem is the crazy frequency, not the noise itself. (Today was so hot in NJ, so AC kept working. The manager explained that was why I couldn't reproduce the noise today, i.e. the noise happens only AFTER the auto control reaches the set temp. This explains why the noise becomes more frequent after driving a while.)

So I called Toyota and got case number, but I have a bad feeling already, i.e. Toyota won't fix it unless more people demand it.

As soon as I get the case manager's call, I will do my best to explain about the problem and also relay this forum's address.

I am so frustrated that I have to reproduce the problem every time I go to the service, four times in a week already. Back to square one again and again.

Here is my case # 1505040369. Feel free to utilize it to show Toyota that there are others who are going thru the same problem.

If you don't mind sharing your case #s , please do so. So we can make some wave.

It is so maddening that Toyota FTS is calling this normal. Will update more after talking to case manager. (current odometer: 1180 miles, 350 of which was for service center visits and test drives to show symptoms.)
 
#22 ·
It's the air blend servo

Do a search for Toyota Denso servo and you'll see that this is a common problem although generally it's when the servo fails after a period of time and starts clicking. I have the same issue on my 2015 Highlander (1 week old - 500 miles). Took it into service yesterday to get the hitch installed and mentioned the noise. The tech indicated he "couldn't reproduce" it on the the service invoice when I picked up the car despite the service writer acknowledging the issue.

I'm planning on bringing it up with another service department when I take the car in for the first service (or earlier if it gets worse). There is no excuse for the servo to be this noisy when new. I am curious if it's all vehicles or just a subset with bad servos.

Please keep us updated. But you should mention the air blend servo by name when you get it looked at next by service. Hopefully it's just a bad batch of servos and Toyota will make good for those of us with the issue. It's actually a relatively easy fix (although I don't know how much of the dash they need to take apart to get to it on the 2015.
 
#24 ·
Bought my 2015 Highlander Limited (tech pkg) on 4/30....husband decided to sync passenger side temp controls to the drivers side temp controls this AM...and the buzzing began. It hadn't stopped by the time we got home this evening, so we started searching the internet...thanks to this forum he was able to figure out what he did. ....He just turned off the Sync....we will see what tomorrow brings.
 
#29 ·
I just bought my 2015 Limited yesterday and I noticed the same issue. At first, I thought it was the hard drive or a disc spinning up and down quickly. I turned off the radio caching feature and checked if there was a CD in the dash, but no change.

On my way home from work today, I noticed it became more sustained when I adjusted the temperature. I have the temp on "synced and non-auto", but it's still every 30 seconds or so. It's hard not to be distracted by it, so I'll bring it by the dealership next chance I get and demonstrate it for them. Other than that, what a great car:grin:
 
#31 ·
We bought a 2015 Highlander XLE AWD in early April, and just today I noticed the issue while driving the car alone (no wife or kids). It is rather annoying but seems to become less noticeable once I had my son in the car. I do feel the noise -- at least what I am hearing -- should not be classified as normal or acceptable. It is like driving with gnats that keep buzzing you.
 
#33 · (Edited)
Crazy Toyota

Here is more:

5/5/2015: Talked to Toyota case manager, who said he would explain to FTS about this again and Toyota would solve the problem.

5/8/2015: Case manager said the noise is normal no matter how often the noise happens according to the same FTS, who is the regional manager for this matter. So no more remedy, live with it. Just like that, unbelievable.

No matter what dealer I go in my area, the same FTS (Adam Gibson) would say the same. The only way for second opinion is going beyond the FTS' area, which is not known to me.

A Toyota technician told me the other day that replacing air blend servo is pretty expensive because the whole dashboard needs to be taken apart. So my conclusion is Toyota won't fix or recall problems unless the problem is life threatening, i.e. $$$$$$ for Toyota. Extremely disappointed by Toyota.

Does anyone have a good idea to combine our complaints and approach Toyota like a mass protest?

I will call a lemon lawyer but NJ requires 3 repairs for same problem, so maybe no luck there either cuz Toyota won't even acknowledge the problem.
 
#36 ·
Same issue here. Just picked up our 2015 limited platinum Monday and noticed the issue a couple days ago. Mentioned it to the wife yesterday and now it's driving her crazy.

Messed with the climate control settings yesterday and auto and sync seem to some -- but minimal -- impact. This is just unacceptable. Will be calling the dealership tomorrow. We'll see what happens, but based on what I've seen in this thread, I'm not optimistic.
 
#37 ·
Never had that problem with my 2014 XLE. I don't believe any automotive "lemon" law is going to be invoked for an annoying sound, whether is be wind noise, humming sounds, or clicking noises UNLESS they are safety related.


Good luck on solving your "sound" issues. For me, I always listen to the radio so the sounds the car makes do not bother me unless the hum or drone from the tires drowns out the radio.
 
#38 · (Edited)
Ear Ringing Sound

I noticed this ringing sound, thought my ears were ringing. But I asked the wife and she hears it too. You can only hear it when the audio is turned off and no one's in the car really. Doesn't bother me too bad. Something about the technology with the Bluetooth and navigation that is not right about this car. The radio quality goes from low to high every time you change the station too like how youtube videos increase in quality when your speed catches up. Anyway, in regards to the ringing sound I never thought it would be something to do with the AC. Pretty good insight to the forum. Thanks guys.
 
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