My only complain: Road noise!

[Marvinlee]

The problem in my view is inherent in the car design. The engineers simply failed to take sufficient steps to prevent high road noise on certain roads. The road noise issue was perhaps more noticeable on the Genesis V8 I drove in Oregon. Oregon uses a coarse aggregate on many of its state roads, and when the initial asphalt top part wears, the road noise worsens. On brand new, or newly resurfaced roads, almost any car has low road noise. The German E-550 has a similar road noise problem, but the Hyundai Equus I drove did fine. Best of all were all three of my spouse's big V8 Cadillacs of various years.

 

[nextcar]

I have about 10k miles on my Bridgestone turanza serenity plus tires, and they are fairly quiet on rough pavement too.

I don't think there's a problem with engineering in the Genesis.
It has very good cabin insulation and engine mounting/isolation.

 

[Brian_in_Charlotte]

RonJ, I have the exact same experience in my 2013. Even on dry days I wonder if the driver's door is fully closed or whether there's a big gap in the seal that I haven't found yet. Hard to tell where the wind noise is coming from, but it's definitely worse than my last car (07 Saturn Aura). I've learned to just live with it, but let us know if you find out anything from the dealer.

 

[Gunkk]

All cars make road noise on rough pavement, but again it's highly dependent on the tires you have. Older tires tend to give more road noise, so some get confused there.

My 2009 and my friend's 2012 have nearly zero wind noise up to 90 mph. If you really have a lot of wind noise, something is wrong with the seals.

Take some dental floss, open the window and close the door on it. If you can slide it through the seals easily in any spot, you have found your gap.

 

[Alwaysforward]

Great tip Gunkk... Thanks for sharing

 

[LTH]

I have a 2011 4.6 with the Tech Package and the only significant problems have been road noise, a "jiggly" ride that's not particularly smooth and poor tracking on the highway that required constant small steering corrections to maintain a straight line. The noise, ride and tracking problems were solved by scrapping the "ultra high performance" Dunlop OEM tires and replacing them with 55 aspect ratio Michelin touring tires. I'm sure I've lost a few hundredths on the skidpad but, since I spend no time at all on a skidpad these days, it doesn't matter to me. The car is now much quieter, the ride is much smoother, the jiggling is gone and it tracks well. Sometimes car manufacturers seem to choose tires to impress the car magazine road testers rather than the consumer and I believe Hyundai made that mistake with the Genesis. There are many noisy, poor-riding BMWs with exactly the same problem. Ultra high performance tires are not appropriate for a car like the Genesis, in my opinion. The Michelin tires I installed are 225/55R18 Primacy MXV4. They are within 3% of the circumference of the original tires so speedometer accuracy is not significantly affected. The Michelin's load rating is also a bit higher. I checked with Michelin tech support and they recommended an inflation pressure of 31psi for these tires when used on the Genesis.

 

[Gunkk]

Michelin Pilot Super Sports (max performance summer) are incredible tires that fit the Genny to a T in non-snow conditions. The wet grip is still amazing with only about 4/32nds left after 18,000 mi of spirited driving. Noise is higher than when they were new, but still reasonable and certainly not as bad as others I've owned. MPSS are by far best tires I've ever owned. Tire rack has them for $792 for a set of four and yes I will buy these again.

 

[Marvinlee]

"I don't think there's a problem with engineering in the Genesis. It has very good cabin insulation and engine mounting/isolation."

The Genesis does have good insulation and engine isolation. Those, however, are not the only tire noise control factors. Options available to Hyundai to improve road noise isolation include these: Hydro-elastic suspension mounts, multi-layer wheel well shell, tuned tire liners as used in some new Continental tires, higher aspect ratio tires, tuned hollow rim wheels as used in the recent LS460 Lexus models, tuned plastic wheel liners as developed by Honda, additional rubber cushioning between shock absorbers and the chassis, as used in my 1971 Chrysler Newport, sandwich sheet metal with elastomeric inner layer as used in some Ford trucks, active noise cancellation as used in multiple new cars, air suspension as used in Equus models and several European cars, and greater wheel travel, which is an original design decision, to allow for softer shock absorber action without causing the suspension to bottom out and without transmitting as much vibration loading to the chassis. These are only a few of many ways in which perceived tire noise can be suppressed. The underlying issue is that of money, not engineering: preventing tire noise from reaching the driver's ears costs money.

 

[nextcar]

My genesis with serenity plus tires is as quiet as our previous lexus ES 350 and our brand new Benz E350.
If a genesis owner complains of road noise, there is some problem with the car or the tires.

 

[iqjumpuw]

Hmmm... I have stock tires on and road noise is very minimal. In fact, it's very quiet for me. Maybe that's because I came from a Lexus IS250 AWD...

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[videopho]

Easily quiest car I've ever owned. Coming from Lexus LS400 previously.
I can point to two most common culprits to those with noise issue: road surface and driving on a windy day.

 

[RonJ]

Easily quiest car I've ever owned. Coming from Lexus LS400 previously.
I can point to two most common culprits to those with noise issue: road surface and driving on a windy day.

Just had my Genny to the dealer for wind noise. After a drive in town and on the highway, I was told the car sounded "normal". My 10 year old Chevy pick-up has less wind noise!!

Warmer weather, I may try to tighten the striker adjustments myself.

RonJ

 

[videopho]

If you happen to own a smart phone.
Down load the sound pressure gauge app (free app).
While cruising at hwy speed use it to measure the noise level inside the cabin and compare it with other cars if necessary (or test drive with a service adviser).
I used this technique with my coupe when switching from stocked exhaust to the Magnaflow CBE only to discover the Magnaflow was just as quiet as stocked while cruising at 70mph or higher.

 

[Mark_888]

If you happen to own a smart phone.
Down load the sound pressure gauge app (free app).
While cruising at hwy speed use it to measure the noise level inside the cabin and compare it with other cars if necessary (or test drive with a service adviser).
I used this technique with my coupe when switching from stocked exhaust to the Magnaflow CBE only to discover the Magnaflow was just as quiet as stocked while cruising at 70mph or higher.

Mics on a cell phone are not very good, as they are typically used mainly for voice. A microphone that can accurately reproduce the complete spectrum of low to high frequencies that are audible to the human ear are expensive and usually fairly large compared to a mic in a cell phone.

 

[videopho]

Not sure which smart phone you were referring to but mine (HTC one) is pretty damn accurate, it calibrates within a a decibel or two with my ever reliable analog SPL (Radio Shack) in which I use to calibrate my home theater surround sound system.
It's YMMV but it's better than NOTHING.