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Hello and welcome. For some time now I have noticed a whistling sound coming from near the windshield when driving faster than 50 mph. Today, with the help of a friend, I was able to figure out what the problem was. I made a correction from this topic with the triangle before, but it didn't change anything about the noise.
A friend and I did a leaf blower test. A colleague blew into individual fragments of the window at the seal and there is 1 place where air got in. This is the place marked in the photo. What's more, in this place it is like connecting the window seals (marked with a yellow arrow). In the place marked in blue, the car window is not in full contact with the seal. This is due to the bulge in the place marked with a yellow arrow. This forging causes that the remaining part of the gasket (marked in blue) does not come into contact with the glass, but slightly sticks out. You can insert a business card or a thinner credit card here. That's where the air gets in. When you press the seal against the glass with your finger, the noise of the air from the blower is not audible. Now my question is what would you advise me to do about it? I will repeat that there is a small unevenness on this window seal at the connection point. This inequality is also from the inside where the seal is in contact with the glass. Maybe I should heat this part of the window seal with warm air? Maybe someone has other advice?
I will add that the problem occurs on the left and right side of the car.
Thank you and sorry for my English. I use google translator.
Welcome to our forum. When I first looked at your pictures I was a little confused. But now I see that it is a view of the forward corner of the window in the left front door. That has been a problem area for wind noise on the early LS460s and LS600s. Very prevalent in the '07s and '08s. Mostly gone by the '10s. And by the '13s no reports that I am aware of.
From your picture I see that you will likely need to replace the window seal. Reports are that it is not an expensive part and not too much labor. Yours seems to have a tear. I have never seen that before.
I can see that a repair to the triangle trim has been attempted. Looks like it was sealed with something like Permatex gasket seal without removing it. You are unlikely to get good results with that kind of repair. The Permatex is not appropriate sealant and the trim must be removed and the area under it sealed before the trim is installed.
I understand your resorting to the leaf blower as a test aid. Keep in mind that the leaf blower air stream to too powerful for that kind of testing and may damage your gasket. I have seen reports of air velocity greater than 200 MPH from leaf blowers.
So, I think you need to do the following repairs, and maybe to both sides:
1. Remove the triangle trim.
2. Replace the window gasket. Be sure to complete the window gasket replacement before you work on the trim replacement.
Welcome to our forum. When I first looked at your pictures I was a little confused. But now I see that it is a view of the forward corner of the window in the left front door. That has been a problem area for wind noise on the early LS460s and LS600s. Very prevalent in the '07s and '08s. Mostly gone by the '10s. And by the '13s no reports that I am aware of.
From your picture I see that you will likely need to replace the window seal. Reports are that it is not an expensive part and not too much labor. Yours seems to have a tear. I have never seen that before.
I can see that a repair to the triangle trim has been attempted. Looks like it was sealed with something like Permatex gasket seal without removing it. You are unlikely to get good results with that kind of repair. The Permatex is not appropriate sealant and the trim must be removed and the area under it sealed before the trim is installed.
I understand your resorting to the leaf blower as a test aid. Keep in mind that the leaf blower air stream to too powerful for that kind of testing and may damage your gasket. I have seen reports of air velocity greater than 200 MPH from leaf blowers.
So, I think you need to do the following repairs, and maybe to both sides:
1. Remove the triangle trim.
2. Replace the window gasket. Be sure to complete the window gasket replacement before you work on the trim replacement.
4. Install the triangle trim per the instructions above.
If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask. Good luck.
I made a triangle according to the instructions a long time ago. nothing helped. wind noise is heard from the beginning of the seal marked in blue. can i ask for a link to the seal? I'm from Poland and it's hard to get this part in my country.
Thank you.
Today I was doing a test on the highway and sticking a small piece of butyl rubber minimized the noise by about 75%. I think I should replace the gasket? Will I have to dismantle the door? I may have a problem with this because I have car audio equipment installed and there is a large amount of butyl rubber inside the door.
Well, you shouldn’t cut the registration-holes in the patch plate The patch plate is intended to seal the registration holes. You will need to trim the registration pins on the triangle trim flush as they will not have a place. A better sealant would be GE280.
You should not need to remove the door to change the window seal.
If you do a better job of sealing behind the triangle trim you may not need to replace the window seal. The car is very quiet so even a very small leak behind the trim is very noticeable.
I was going to create a new thread about this exact problem, but looks like someone else read my mind and revived this common complaint.
I want to add that I too suffer from wind noise in my 07 LS460L.
The noise isn’t coming from the plastic triangle trim, but rather the top of the window seal trim of the front door windows.
As some here mentioned that when they lower the windows slightly, the wind noise decreases drastically. This is what I did, and it worked on cutting down on the noise, but it didn’t completely eliminate it.
I tried using silicone sealer to fill in any gaps at the corners of the seal that was recommended on another thread which didn’t help at all.
The thing is, the window seal isn’t coming apart or is uneven. It looks perfect, but it does seem like something is going on as if the window isn’t completely flush with the seal.
Can someone help me with this issue? Do I need a new seal? Any recommendations are welcomed.
I was going to create a new thread about this exact problem, but looks like someone else read my mind and revived this common complaint.
I want to add that I too suffer from wind noise in my 07 LS460L.
The noise isn’t coming from the plastic triangle trim, but rather the top of the window seal trim of the front door windows.
As some here mentioned that when they lower the windows slightly, the wind noise decreases drastically. This is what I did, and it worked on cutting down on the noise, but it didn’t completely eliminate it.
I tried using silicone sealer to fill in any gaps at the corners of the seal that was recommended on another thread which didn’t help at all.
The thing is, the window seal isn’t coming apart or is uneven. It looks perfect, but it does seem like something is going on as if the window isn’t completely flush with the seal.
Can someone help me with this issue? Do I need a new seal? Any recommendations are welcomed.
Thanks!
So same as with me. I have the same symptoms on my Lexus.
Try to seal the beginning od the gasket as I sent in the picture. Let me know if it helps.
This fix has been around for many years. It's possible that this wind leaks are no longer the basic leak but compound because so many years have gone by. Looking forward to reading the final resolutions by all the affected parties.
I was going to create a new thread about this exact problem, but looks like someone else read my mind and revived this common complaint.
I want to add that I too suffer from wind noise in my 07 LS460L.
The noise isn’t coming from the plastic triangle trim, but rather the top of the window seal trim of the front door windows.
As some here mentioned that when they lower the windows slightly, the wind noise decreases drastically. This is what I did, and it worked on cutting down on the noise, but it didn’t completely eliminate it.
I tried using silicone sealer to fill in any gaps at the corners of the seal that was recommended on another thread which didn’t help at all.
The thing is, the window seal isn’t coming apart or is uneven. It looks perfect, but it does seem like something is going on as if the window isn’t completely flush with the seal.
Can someone help me with this issue? Do I need a new seal? Any recommendations are welcomed.
Thanks!
Can you share with us how you concluded that the noise you are experiencing is not caused by the detached triangle-trim? I remember it was very difficult to prove that was the cause of the noise I was experiencing. The only way that I proved it was the cause was to do an adequate repair. I say adequate repair because I tried several different ways before I got it right.
The window seal design seems to be battleship quality and unlikely to leak.
Keep in mind that nearly all of the '07s, in an attempt to deal with the wind noise concern, had the glass in the front doors exchanged, for thicker glass, at the dealerships. There were few to no reports of wind noise improvement from the glass replacement. Actually there were a few reports that the glass exchange made the wind noise worse. Maybe a few of the replacements were not done carefully.
Can you share with us how you concluded that the noise you are experiencing is not caused by the detached triangle-trim? I remember it was very difficult to prove that was the cause of the noise I was experiencing. The only way that I proved it was the cause was to do an adequate repair. I say adequate repair because I tried several different ways before I got it right.
The window seal design seems to be battleship quality and unlikely to leak.
Keep in mind that nearly all of the '07s, in an attempt to deal with the wind noise concern, had the glass in the front doors exchanged, for thicker glass, at the dealerships. There were few to no reports of wind noise improvement from the glass replacement. Actually there were a few reports that the glass exchange made the wind noise worse. Maybe a few of the replacements were not done carefully.
I sealed the whole triangle with a thick layer of butyl mass (I don't have a photo of the tests) but it didn't help a bit. Covering a small piece of gasket (marked with a green rectangle in the photo) 0.5x0.5 inch eliminated 75% of the noise. That's where the noise has to come from. I don't know how to fix it. I plan to buy foam tape and stick it on the upper window frame along the entire length, maybe it will help.
I have a 2008 and noticed excessive wind noise when driving under certain conditions. I finally took the leap and pried off my triangle trim pieces, and simply stuck them back on again via liberal use of a type of clear silicone sealant, I didn't even really clean the surfaces. I didn't fabricate any sort of patch like the JMcRaney fix, but I have noticed a huge decrease in wind noise, but there is still some noticeable noise. Enough to make you think "that shouldn't be happening in a car like this".
I haven't been keeping up to speed on these fix threads so I don't know what has been suggested, but I was driving through some pretty serious storms recently and I noticed the way that the rain was being force funneled between the space between the mirror and the door, and around the mirror. It was like watching one of those wind tunnel test videos, but instead of smoke it was water, and there seemed to be a lot of turbulence cause by the mirrors. This has led me to believe that the older style mirrors are actually most of the problem.
Can you share with us how you concluded that the noise you are experiencing is not caused by the detached triangle-trim? I remember it was very difficult to prove that was the cause of the noise I was experiencing. The only way that I proved it was the cause was to do an adequate repair. I say adequate repair because I tried several different ways before I got it right.
The window seal design seems to be battleship quality and unlikely to leak.
Keep in mind that nearly all of the '07s, in an attempt to deal with the wind noise concern, had the glass in the front doors exchanged, for thicker glass, at the dealerships. There were few to no reports of wind noise improvement from the glass replacement. Actually there were a few reports that the glass exchange made the wind noise worse. Maybe a few of the replacements were not done carefully.
I did notice that the plastic triangles on my 07 are getting loose and there is a small gap at the very tip of the trim piece that has pulled away slightly due to age I am guessing.
So I went ahead and purchased the updated '13+ triangle design with the fin and will install it with silicone window sealer.
But the wind noise isn’t coming from that trim piece, rather up above right at ear level when the windows are all the way up in the track, the noise is more pronounced. It sounds like the noise is coming from the very edge/corner of the window seal near the B pillar.
So to minimize the wind noise, I have to slightly click the window switch down like a half inch or so, and the noise decreases by a lot. So this is why I am thinking there could be something wrong with window track or the window seal itself has shrunk possibly due to the older age of the rubber now, or a maybe too thin of a seal from the factory so when the window glass is all the way up in the seal, it’s not flush thus allowing a small gap to occur which allows air to flow past that gap creating the wind noise.
BTW because my car is an a “ L” model it has laminated windows on all the door glass, and I still have this issue. I’ll take pics of the work of the results of the trim piece replacement and report back.
I have a 2008 and noticed excessive wind noise when driving under certain conditions. I finally took the leap and pried off my triangle trim pieces, and simply stuck them back on again via liberal use of a type of clear silicone sealant, I didn't even really clean the surfaces. I didn't fabricate any sort of patch like the JMcRaney fix, but I have noticed a huge decrease in wind noise, but there is still some noticeable noise. Enough to make you think "that shouldn't be happening in a car like this".
I haven't been keeping up to speed on these fix threads so I don't know what has been suggested, but I was driving through some pretty serious storms recently and I noticed the way that the rain was being force funneled between the space between the mirror and the door, and around the mirror. It was like watching one of those wind tunnel test videos, but instead of smoke it was water, and there seemed to be a lot of turbulence cause by the mirrors. This has led me to believe that the older style mirrors are actually most of the problem.
The mirror design or the placement of them could cause some sort of turbulence that enhances the wind noise, but I don’t think is the cause. A poor seal somewhere on the door or window is ultimately the real problem.
Before I bought my 07, I owned a 2017 Chevy Impala which was a great car BTW, but I just wanted a car with V8 that’s RWD, reliable and had features that brand new cars today don’t even have.
Plus I love floaty old school full size 1970’s Cadilliacish and Lincoln riding smoothness and the LS460 fit that bill in a more modern form, so i bought one and sold my newer car for something 10 years older (which sounds crazy) , but is way better all around compared to the newer Impala besides for one thing.
And that is the wind noise. The Impala had no wind noise at all. It was a very quiet car as a matter of fact at all speeds. Not as quiet as my LS460, but pretty close. I’ve noticed as my tires have worn down, the road noise has gone way up and ride quality has diminished big time.
So the combination of increased road noise and wind noise really pisses me off. These are really solidly built cars especially in comparison to say the ES350 of a similar year. My girlfriend owns an '09 ES350 and I cannot believe how cheaply made the interior is compared to the older ES300-330 generation. Plus it’s noisier inside than the older ES which is insane to me. I know because I used to also own a ES330.
The older ES’s were much higher quality including the paint and interior materials. Same with the RX vehicles. My mother owns a 2003 RX300 and the interior is solidly put together with very nice sturdy door panels, and the way the door shut and close sounds very nice and “thunky” not hollow and “clanky”. The paint still shines bright and looks amazing for being 20 years old. Besides for some cheap plastic trim pieces here and there which is below Lexus standards IMO, it feels much nicer than the RX330 that came after it and doesn’t suffer from cracking dashboard and melting door panels either.
Although the RX330-350’s look more luxurious inside and ride nicer compared to the utilitarian bumpy RX300, I do feel like the older Lexuses were better constructed than the 2007-2012 generation. At least from an interior standpoint. Less flimsy/flexy materials that didn’t creak and felt sturdier.
The LS460 surprisingly isn’t immune to the cheapness either, with melting door panels, and dash, less than nice plasticky switches and *****, cheap *** glove box etc.., but it is still better inside than similar year luxury cars costing even more money like an S-Class which has a super flimsy feeling interior for such an expensive vehicle. Even the doors aren’t that heavy in the Benz compared to an LS460.
You can avoid most of the interior issues of the 07-12 LS460’s by simply finding an L model. Especially the door panels that are wrapped in synthetic leather which avoids the melting, fading panels of the standard LS460’s.
11-01-21, 02:30 PM
