strange sound at full accelration

Michael said:

Hi,

My karma has 6.28, new batteriers and fan, built nr around 2000 so its if fairly new.

I noticed this.
When you floor the gaspedal and running from stealth everything sounds ok.
When you change to sport it comes after a while at full accelartion, it sounds like a garbage disposal(rattle sound) right under the driver och passerenger seat.
When I flip over to stealth the same sound can be heard which is strange.(not as loud but still)

It is only when you floor the gaspedal.

Is this normal?

My karma has only done 1280miles

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That's the "heat shield rattle"—a common problem, your dealer can tweak the shape of the heat shield a bit to eliminate it. (It probably continues in stealth because the engine doesn't shut off immediately: once you've turned it on, the computer tries to keep it running until it has warmed up properly, to avoid moisture condensation issues.)

I should probably have mine tweaked, it buzzes a bit sometimes.

Michael said:

Hi,

My karma has 6.28, new batteriers and fan, built nr around 2000 so its if fairly new.

I noticed this.
When you floor the gaspedal and running from stealth everything sounds ok.
When you change to sport it comes after a while at full accelartion, it sounds like a garbage disposal(rattle sound) right under the driver och passerenger seat.
When I flip over to stealth the same sound can be heard which is strange.(not as loud but still)

It is only when you floor the gaspedal.

Is this normal?

My karma has only done 1280miles

Click to expand...

Michael, I took delivery of my Karma on Saturday, October 6. By the afternoon of the next day, I had exhausted the battery, and my car automatically switched from Stealth to Sport. And that's when I too began to hear the 'garbage disposal noise'. It was really awful. Whenever I pressed the accelerator pedal, the noise was there. It was pretty unbearable to hear in my brand new, 100K+ car!

On Monday, I took my car into my dealer. A weld in the exhaust system had failed causing the heat shield to rattle. They had the car repaired by the following day. Happily, everything is running fine now.

I'm no mechanic, but I feel pretty sure you are dealing with the same issue I had. It should be a pretty simple fix for your dealer. Good luck!

The heat shield issue was something I had also experienced. The dealer tweaked the heat shield which did not completely rosolve the issue. I brought it in again and they not only tweaked the heat shield but replaced something called a resonator. That totally eliminated the rattling noise.

Definitely the heat shield. Had that problem initially and now I almost never hear it.

I have this sound in my new Karma too at certain accelerations, steering and wind angles -- haven't got it fixed yet.

Center muffler can be causing your problems which is also called the resonator

Mine used to do it, had it fixed, now all is quiet.

will ask the dealer to fix it.
It is strange that they dont testdrive the cars better at the factory to find these kind of things before delivering to end customers.

Michael said:

will ask the dealer to fix it.
It is strange that they dont testdrive the cars better at the factory to find these kind of things before delivering to end customers.

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I had high hopes for valmet since they also assembled porches , but it seemed they really did not have the quality assurance one would expect or they too were rushed to meet schedule. I think Tony said a few weeks ago, Fisker was too agreesive and ambitious, but I have faith they'll work it out.

I dont think its valmets fault.
I had an boxster for 4 years.
drove it all year
not a single fault.

I have the same problem.. It's under 60-75% acceleration only.. Full throttle the sound is minimal.. Accelerating onto the freeway the whole time I get that noise.. Sick of taking the car to the dealer so I just live with it.

Can someone take a picture of what needs to be adjusted? So I can see about just fixing it real quick?

Thanks

MyColorIsGreen said:

Can someone take a picture of what needs to be adjusted? So I can see about just fixing it real quick?

Thanks

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A picture is easy but you need the car up in the air plus if its a heat shield you need to bend the heat shield out of the way it's one of those adjustments you can't really do in your driveway .

Thanks for the pictures... I'll put the front end on jack stands and adjust it this weekend! It's worth a 30 minute try.. Less time then making an appointment with the service department.

i heard it again today at normal accelaration in sport mode.
Hope you can get rid of it 100%

If I am unable to get it to stop rattling I'll get some xtreme dynamat http://www.dynamat.com/products_car_audio_extremeliner.html

This will deaden the vibration.

MyColorIsGreen said:

If I am unable to get it to stop rattling I'll get some xtreme dynamat http://www.dynamat.com/products_car_audio_extremeliner.html

This will deaden the vibration.

Click to expand...

They had an especially hard time finding and fixing my similar problem. After adjusting the clearances it still rattled at certain engine rpms. Turns out a couple of rivets where it attached up by the exhaust manifold had a bit of play in them.