Thanks, Anonygreen. You are smart and know my ESL English writing. It is a pain for a Japanese to write a whole description about the sounds NAH makes. We are running the new car for about 300 miles now and gradually accept the fact and get used to it. This one really has good mileage almost doubled my 97 Mercury Villager traded in for C4C. I am happy with reducing CO2 emission for the environment.

 

Next time you come to SF ride one of the electric trolley buses and you'll find that the sound you hear in it is very similar to what you hear coming from your NAH. It's just a little louder in the trolley bus because it's all electric. And hold on, the buses have a lot of torque.

 

Ok, mystery solved

Still, I'd much rather hear "ESL" english than disconcerting cloned text from another posting. If you hadn't posted in that other thread, thus bringing it back into the recent posting list, I wouldn't have noticed, LOL.

Anyway, as I said in my first response, the whining sound is the regeneration process: the electric motor acting as a generator. I find it reassuring: it let's you know your battery is being charged.

 

NAH2009, don't you ever think there is something wrong with that noise? First I dont' think it is safe to drive a car like that. If you get used to it, and a police car really wants to pull you over, you may not stop, 'cause you think that is your car causing the noise. I have the same problem with my new NAH, and absolutely hate it. I can't believe the trouble I am having. I am going to take it to service on Monday, if they can't fix it, need to talk to Nissan Corporate on this... I will never buy a Nissasn car anymore. Have you get your car checked, did service tell you that was normal? I test drove another one, which didn't have that noise.... but the service people don't know what to do with noise my car has.

 

nissanhybrid: We went to Nissan dealer service dept for the noise. They test drived it and and said the noise is just a little bit louder and still normal to hybrid. They said each car is different. There are some has little noise. Should we file a group complaim to Nissan corporate about the noise?

 

Totally agree, we should file a group complain against Nissan. I am really upset at them. Literally thought bringing my brand new Nissan Altima Hybrid to a Honda dealer to trade in for another Honda car. I had driven a Honda for the last 13 years, which has fantastic fuel efficiency 30 mpg city and over 40 mpg for high way.... I test drove a few other Altima Hybrid, except one, others do have similar sound.... Awful, how can they roll out the cars like this? How can we do this? I have a complain case in with Nissan North America Corporate, they should do a recall, and get rid of the awful sound.

 

this feels like a fake thread between nah2009 and nissanhybrid. just trying to flame the car.

if nissanhybrid's post is real, then it's pretty poor judgment on their part to not test drive a car before buying it. all hybrids have that noise, the last generation prius had an even louder noise. does a gasoline engine not make noise when you rev it up? motors are no different

 

This is not a fake thread. THIS is real. It does sound like police siren or an aircraft landing(remotely) when you step on the brake I had to admit, I was stupid when I test drove the car before, I thought there were really police cars down the road from the dealer, because the dealer is on a busy road. Not until we drove the car home, and when I started driving in my neighborhood, I realized the sound was from the car...... No police drives around a residential neighborhood with siren on, that will drive everybody crazy. I rode in a 2003 Honda Civic Hybrid before, I never noticed the loud noise like that. I just talked to the guy who owns that car a couple days back, and he said it does make some noise, since it tries to start the generator when you hit brake, but should be really faint, not loud, and maybe we should get some after market stuff to insulate the thing.... I am going to test drive Toyota Prius soon to see if Prius makes that horrible noice and I will be back to report that.

 

the motor and generator are under the hood, it wouldn't be possible to insulate it. The only time I really ever notice the noise is when the radio is really low. I've grown used to it but I also live in a location where we have subways that make the same noise so I'm pretty used to it. Give it some more time and see how you feel about it

 

I have driven a Toyota Prius, Honda Civic Hybrid, Toyota Highlander Hybrid and the Nissan Altima Hybrid. They all make the noise as it's the regenerative braking that's causing the noise. This is part of the experience of driving a hybrid. Personally, I like that sound as it lets me know that I'm recharging the batteries and not using very much of the friction braking.