Finger's crossed! I am trying to find an answer. Once I know something, if I find out anything, I will post it up.

The service writer that we deal with even asked my wife if she wanted to see about trading out of it. Not his place and not something he should even say. But even he is preparing for the worst I guess.

 

A bit of an update, sort of...

They came and got our Defender yesterday from my wife's work to keep us from driving back and forth so many times. It is well appreciated as it is getting old, quick. The first loaner they gave her to drive was a new Velar, very nice vehicle, but not the Defender for sure. Today we get a call from the woman who schedules the loaners and service and she insisted they bring us a new Defender to drive out of their loaner fleet that just came back in. It wasn't necessary but it was very well appreciated. The Defender they brought out was a new 2020 S model, not the First Edition with the 6 cylinder.

So my wife drove home today in the S model and no adverse noises. She drove the same path she always drives in the same manner and no noises. So...this leads me to 2 things.

1, maybe this noise we are hearing is ONLY with the 6 cylinder model?
2, maybe it only happens once you reach so many miles on the odometer? Either way, hopefully we are onto something.

I hate to say this, but they did tell us today that they will probably have our vehicle for a while. I don't know what a while is, or if they are going to call in someone from LR to get to the bottom of it. But, they are working on it. So hopefully, they can find it and fix it. Once I know something for sure, I will post up more info. Hoping to help someone else should they encounter this issue in the future.

 

Any updates on the fix? I have the same noises coming from the back right side of the vehicle, and I do have the same 6 cyl engine.

 

Yes and no. They brought us our car back and it still made the noise. Just like before. But this time it is intermittent, it isn't each and every time we drive it. It also has been crappy weather here since, so the rain/water/dampness plays a role in my opinion.

I have been driving it this week, not my wife, as she's been off work most of the week. I have only heard the "moan" 5 times since they brought it back Tuesday. Today we drove to our favorite restaurant in Boone NC, which is about 250 plus miles round trip. Heard it once going up, but it was really windy when we heard it. Once the wind died down we didn't hear it again. On the drive back we heard it several times, but again, each time the wind was kicking up.

My wife actually got some advice from an ex LR tech from FB. He told us to tap on each of the aluminum cross bars that our rack has. To see if they were loose or hollow sounding. Apparently he had seen this before? I don't know. So I actually went one step further and removed all the slats out of the rack. Except the big one closest to the rear, it's a lil harder to remove and I was afraid I couldn't get it back on correctly. I test drove the vehicle for quite a while and I am happy to report I think that removed about 90% of our moan. You could still hear it barely coming from the rear of the vehicle. But I do mean barely. I am going to leave the slats out for a few days just to make sure that is indeed our issue. If the rack is the culprit, I don't know how they will fix it. Our car came with and we paid for it, so removing it altogether isn't an option.

This is not to say it isn't something else, but the rack was the easiest place to start for me. Especially since I want to try and find it, that was I can tell our service dept exactly what it is.

But it is weird that we have had the rack since Day 1, but the noise didn't start until we got some miles on it.

 

I had an aftermarket OEM full rack from Front Runner on my LR4. It started out fine, but then began moving the roof like a drum -- I guess it could have been described as a moan. It was very speed sensitive, as you describe -- different harmonics would be driven through the different legs at different speeds. I adjusted slats, loosened them, tightened feet, put rubber mounts under the feet , put on the the front wind guard, modified it, altered the number and spacing slats, etc, etc. etc. Nothing really helped. It was worse in cross-winds, particularly a quartering one. Gusts made it more variable.

You could actually feel the roof flexing behind the driver's head through the headliner. Once I figured that out, I could use that as measure of my progress in fixing it. NO help, really. JLR said it was the rack -- told me they could not help it.

Rain did not matter, snow did not matter. It just made NOISE. I then began cut back the rack, to make it shorter, once I found myself not needing to use it as much. Over a period of two years or more, I ended up shortening it to the point that I ended up removing it completely -- I must have created four different sizes during that time. The sound did decrease some, as the rack was made smaller but by that point my tests were all completed and I had to admit to myself that I failed to make a marked difference.

Then during a move to to a new state, I threw away all the pieces -- because I did not desire to repeat the process of trying to settle down the drum head which was the top of my LR4 at speed. I was defeated by the roof, I suppose.

I still own the LR4, and love it. But, I won't be again buying a roof rack -- instead I bought a trailer and use it, instead.

 

I refused to believe it was the rack, but results don't lie I guess. And you described it perfectly.

While I am not an "off roader" or "overlander", my wife wants a rack up there. So I guess we will have to see what the dealership is willing to do? Replace the rack? Who knows. Me, I would rather have it lowered on some street tires and 22's. To me that would make the perfect Defender.

 

Why are people trolling on this site? I Googled 2020 defender sunroof rattle because my $85,000 2022 defender is obviously rattling and while this post wasn't exactly my issue, it helped narrow things down.

​​​​​​Original Poster - thanks for the info as it was helpful.

Troll with poor problem framing/solution development- don't.

 

my noise is at 48mph to 62mph. Like thunder really loud most days. Sometimes no noise
wind maybe not sure. 2020


[QUOTEi still have a nois=RanoliRed;802893]Why are people trolling on this site? I Googled 2020 defender sunroof rattle because my $85,000 2022 defender is obviously rattling and while this post wasn't exactly my issue, it helped narrow things down.

​​​​​​Original Poster - thanks for the info as it was helpful.

Troll with poor problem framing/solution development- don't.[/QUOTE]

 

Mine is definitely more of a rattle but coming from the same area. Range Rover sport threads have some similar descriptions and it would seem it might be the sunroof carriage bolts are lose and need to be tightened...mine sounds like a tiny machine gun and is loud enough that loud music doesn't completely cover it up.

I was on these forums about a year before I bought this vehicle so I was prepared for many small issues which has come to fruition. I'm bringing it to the dealer whenever the key fob unlock module is off backorder....don't want to make the two hour drive more than I already have!

 

Hmmm let me know if you figure it out.
Maybe in the spring I’ll take the rack off
see it goes away … if it does I might switch to cross bars they do say tighten the rack a lot after you install it. Can you send me a pic of your roof so I can see where they mounted it Email is with no spaces aaron accetta at Gmail dot com