Earache / ear pressure whenever I drive the GT... suggestions?

[lovebird]

Hey all,

I recently upgraded from a '15 Sonata to a '18 Stinger GT. While the car's been great, one issue has been persistently bothering me. Whenever I drive the Stinger, 90% of the time I walk out of the car feeling discomfort in the ear - it feels like pressure rather than outright pain. When I drive my wife's car (Infiniti M37) or a rental car, this doesn't happen.

I notice that whenever I crack a window open in the car, the pressure almost always quickly goes away.

I'm stumped on this one and so is the dealership. Is there anything that could be causing this weird sensation?

Thanks in advance -

 

[adam1991]

Your car is no doubt way better sealed than your wife's car, and is exposing something in your ear or sinuses that you've never associated with cars before.

Is your climate control on, pulling fresh air into the cabin? I wonder how well the system is working. The other side of pulling air into the cabin is that the old cabin air must have somewhere to exit. All cars have that; is yours working correctly?

If you can crack a window even a little bit and this behavior changes, maybe you would do well to find out where the cabin air is supposed to exit as fresh air is drawn in.

Oh--what happens if you drive around with recirculation turned on? (I know some fresh air is always drawn in, but who knows.)

 

[lovebird]

Your car is no doubt way better sealed than your wife's car, and is exposing something in your ear or sinuses that you've never associated with cars before.

Is your climate control on, pulling fresh air into the cabin? I wonder how well the system is working. The other side of pulling air into the cabin is that the old cabin air must have somewhere to exit. All cars have that; is yours working correctly?

If you can crack a window even a little bit and this behavior changes, maybe you would do well to find out where the cabin air is supposed to exit as fresh air is drawn in.

Oh--what happens if you drive around with recirculation turned on? (I know some fresh air is always drawn in, but who knows.)

Thanks for this - so I don't really notice much of a difference with this issue when I drive with recirculate vs. fresh air. I drive with fresh air on most of the time.

Is there a quick way for me to test at home whether the cabin air is exiting properly?

 

[MerlintheMad]

Welcome. That is the first time I've heard of our Stinger's designed with "pressurized" cabins! I have nothing to add to what adam said; but keeping one rear window down c. an inch wouldn't be a big deal if that works.

 

[adam1991]

Is there a quick way for me to test at home whether the cabin air is exiting properly?

You'd have to find out where the exit is for cabin air. That sounds like a service manual question.

 

[stoopid]

With my last couple cars if I had the vent pointed in the wrong way, a bit of air would flow across my left ear and I would get a sort of ear ache as a result. Turning the air flow down for the vent closest to the driver's door, or steering the flow up/away from the door resolved the issue.