Horrible wind buffeting with sunroof open

I have a horrible wind buffeting problem with my sunroof open. It creates a low frequency turbulence that is painful to the ears. The only way to alleviate the problem is to crack a window to reduce the air pressure. Is there any adjustments that I can make to the front of the sunroof opening to deflect the wind over the roof opening? Does anyone else have this problem? Thanks, Matt

FYI: I have the same problem with my 99. I crack the window too. -Darren

Every car I have ever had did this. My wife's Alfa and my daughters bmw do it. Try closing the roof but leave about two inches closed. Experiment a little till yyou find the right open position and it will go away.

My sunroof has 2 open positions. If you press the open button, it opens almost all the way (stops about 1" before fully open). This is the position that creates the least noise like you described with the windows closed. If you then press the open button again, it opens the rest of the way, and will make a wap-wap-wap sound if both windows are closed all the way, so I only use the fully opened position when I have the windows opened. Perhaps your sunroof is skipping the first position, and going to full open.

Same problem. However, I've never had it in other cars.

It will only happen at certain speeds. There's no way to avoid it.

My last two bmws did this. Pcar does too. No big deal.

close it about a inch or crack a window

It probably has to do with the teardrop design of the roof. I have this too and crack the windows a bit. Bobby

Its waves of vacumn being formed in the interior and suddenly released. Normal in any sunroofed car I've ever owned. Open a window.

The buffeting is a result of something called Helmholtz resonance. Air passing over the open sunroof like is exactly like blowing over an empty beer bottle. When you are inside your cars, you are inside a Helmholtz resonator - the sound wave produced has a much lower frequency (and higher amplitude) than you would otherwise expect and you can feel the sound wave as well as hear it (hence very annoying). If Dr Keith McIlwane (formerly a teacher at King Edward's School, Birmingham, England) is a member of Rennlist: see - I was listening!

GT3 does not do it

The GT3 must allow air to escape elsewhere then.

GT3 has no sunroof, in fact I don't believe you can even special order one.

I test drove an '02 C4S about a month ago, and when I test drove it I was sure I was going to buy it, that is, until I opened the sunroof. The sound was actually painful to my ears. Now I've owned five cars that had sun roofs, and all of my wife's cars have had sun roofs, and none of them had this problem. Apparently other manufacturers like Lexus, Toyota, MB, and Infiniti must make some sort of design modification to offset the resonance effect. I mention these manufacturers because I've owned cars with sunroofs made by them, and none of them had this effect.

This only happens to me at speeds between approximately 25-45. There is no such effect at highway or better speeds. I jkust crack the window am done with. I will have to experiment with different positions to see if it lessons like suggested. Interesting that others complian of this in BMW's. My wife's 328 does not have this problerm at all.

What are you guys complaining about? Crack a window for crying out loud. Or, put on one of those wind deflectors (not that I would). You want to hear resonance, take an E36 or E39 chassis bmw (sedan), including my buddy's M5. crack the rear windows w/o cracking the sunroof or front windows. your eardrums will be assaulted. sly, I thought you didn't like the C4S?

Someone told me that making the A/C recirculate would fix this. I haven't tested yet. I doubt it's true, but worth a try.

I get wap-wap resonance when I put my Yoko winter AVS's on and I get the sunroof wap-wap all kinda doing the watusi together on those rare times when open sunroofs go with winter tires, but who cares? It beats driving novocaine.