I have had my 997.2TT for about 3 weeks now. 9K miles. CPO. Pristine. It's a PDK and stock.

As my first p-car, I was wondering how much cabin noise is normal? I'm coming from an M5 which was pretty quiet inside.

Less than 30mph sounds fine but on the freeway it's a lot louder inside. I don't believe it's wind noise and all windows/sunroof are closed. It's probably from the engine and I'm not accustomed to having the noise come from behind me.

Note I am *not* complaining about the noise. Just wondering what is normal. Not that I'm going to be listening to much music inside the car but I found that you really can't hear much of the radio once at speed on the freeway.

Thanks!

 

Mine is lowered, on 20's and has a header-back exhaust so I'm sure it makes a bit of a difference. But it is pretty damn loud compared to my Cayenne Turbo w/ Techart exhaust. I can do about a 90 minute trip and I'm pretty much ready to gouge out my ears.

 

Having a similar e60 background, I too was shocked by the poor road noise insulation of my 997.1.

You'll find on the forum that some people have made some extensive noise insulation work by tearing off the whole interior and applying heavy sticky tar patches. With mild results.

Lastly, I replaced a large plastic cover that is under the floor. While below the car, I tapped with the back of my hand on the apparent steel sheets. They sounded like there was no insulation at all!

So I guess the much easier route is by removing all the plastic panels from the underside, protect all the electric wires, pipes and so on, and cover the whole underside with tar patches and many coats of noise insulating paint.

 

I should clarify a little. Those 90 minutes of loud noises are AWESOME. Adds to the racecar-like feel. Then the ears bleed and fun quotient goes down a bit.

 

The majority of my cabin noise at highway speed are the Pirelli tires. If you search the forum you'll come across posts that talk about varying degrees of tire noise depending on which tire brand you have. I believe some have said the OEM michelins are quieter and the pss michelins (not N2 rated) are even quieter.

 

I now have michelin pss and it's not quiet.

 

Thanks for the responses. I was concerned that something wasn't sealed right but from your responses it sounds like what I'm hearing is normal. In that case, everything's good

 

Not at all a quiet car. I've considered earplugs for longer trips, but it just sounds so good I never end up putting them in.

 

I look at getting one because they are not that bad on road noise. Try a GTR, they have 20" runflats that howl at highway speeds. And the car has almost no insulation, you hear the rear transmission all the time. A Porsche does have more road noise than any BMW, but overall pleasant exhaust and intake noise are most present and it makes the driving experience enjoyable.

 

Totally agree with this

 

Once I put some Michelin PSS on my car it was a lot quieter vs the worn Bridgestones. I drove my car back from Phoenix to Minneapolis with the worn tires. I was too excited to be worried about the road noise but much happier now. Not as quiet as my A6 by any stretch but not intolerable.

 

be thankful you dont have a cab
the 997s are loud. this is the area where the 991 excels.
I do wear headphones on long road trips.