Wind coming through defroster vents

[Oldmon]

Kind of a longtime lurker here and curious if any of you have the same issue. I have a 2021 Gladiator Mojave. I don't do a lot of highway driving and I'm mostly immune to wind noise because this is not my first Jeep rodeo, but a noticed bursts of wind noise that were louder than normal yesterday because I happened to have the radio off, which is rare. I know I've heard them before but just chalked them up to the wind noise typical with driving a brick at high speed. I realized the noise was wind blowing through the defrost vents. If I had defrost on at any speed, I could feel and hear the air bursting through the vent. If I turned it off, it would completely stop. I've had many cars and a couple wranglers before. My Gladiator is my first Jeep in the JL line, so is this normal? I can't remember this being an issue on any other car, truck, or Jeep I've owned. I've had the Gladiator for about 7 months and it seems to have a number of minor, odd issues/noises/curiosities.

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[FloridaJT6MT]

Seems like a read another thread about this issue.

 

[FloridaJT6MT]

I’m not having any luck finding the thread but I think @ShadowsPapa had this issue?

 

[ShadowsPapa]

I didn't have that issue but have noticed the sound is different when it's windy outside.
So you had the controls in defrost and not automatic, and you set the fan speed manually - so the "system" should not be controlling fan speed in that mode.
The speed should be set and stay there in defrost mode - outside of automatic mode for heat/AC.
Defrost is noisy in these - well, in all vehicles because of the complex path the air must take and then to be forced out the openings below the glass you get a lot of noise but with the fan set at one speed the noise should be "stable" or constant. Whatever it sounds like at that fan speed should not change.
A few Gladiators got assembled with the defrost duct misaligned and pinched or squeezed down in the dash which could make things a lot more noisy or louder - but if you set the defrost on and the fan speed to low the sound should not go up and down, soft and loud, the fan speed should stay the same and the higher you turn the fan speed, the louder it would get.
If you don't have that affect, time for dealer diagnosis.
If it's crazy loud all the time it's on defrost but louder as you turn the fan speed up I wonder if the duct is misaligned down in there.

 

[Oldmon]

Thank you very much...I'll get it to the dealer to have them check it out. If I had it on defrost (not auto) and a set/constant speed, it was changing speed as I drove through gusts of wind. It was pretty wild feeling and hearing it push right through the vent. Like I said, I know I've noticed it before, but just figured it was normal windshield noise since I never actually put my hand over it, changed sppeds, shut it off and back in, etc. to really nail it down. I'm a Jeep guy, but I think the build quality of my truck is a bit suspect. It has a bunch of creaks, rattles, and odd issues like this one I didn't deal with on my 2016 JK. Pretty disappointing.

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