05 Camry Tire Noise ??

[snake07]

Hi all,

I've been having noise from my tires on my 05 Camry and those noise start getting worse to the point I feel so annoy while driving at low and high speed.

I'm currently using Lexus IS300 17" Rims with a set of Potenza 215/50R17 tires.

I had 40k miles on those tires and the treads still in good shape, no sign of wear. I've been doing routine tire rotation every 5k miles and alignment twice a year.

I've been trying everything I could to see I can get grid off the noise recently like alignment, balance but it didn't help.

Any suggestion to fix this problem would be appreciated.

Thanks,

[arabianobsession]

The tires themselves may be out of round. Try a road force balancer next time and see if it helps.

[snake07]

Thank you for your response,

Don't mind me, what is "road force balancer" ?

Is RFB service available at Firestone or some local tire shop ?

[arabianobsession]

Road Force balancing can measure and correct forces created by your wheel and tire far beyond what simple spin balancing can do. You will notice a huge difference in how the car rides, but to warn you, it does cost a bit more than traditional balancing. Most Toyota dealers have them, and places like Firestone should too.

[snake07]

Thanks a lot,

I'll call and check with Firestone to see if it's avail and I'll have them do RFB today after work.

[arabianobsession]

Let us know how it turns out!

[snake07]

I brought the car to Firestone and they did not do the RFB. What they told me was the noise was not caused by the unbalancing of the tires, it's caused by the choppy of the tires and the cause of the choppy on the tires are from the struts and shocks.

They claimed the struts and shocks are only good for 50k miles so they recommended replacing all struts and shocks and all new tires, it'd cost around $1500.

As soon as they told me to replace all new tires, I told them those tires were warranted for 50k and they said that's manufactured warranty and it only covers for defects in this case it's not and in addition to that they don't have a record of tire rotations. I told them I've been rotating at home and they said they need a record.

I've just checked the paper work when I replaced those tires, I've bought additional protection repair and replacement for those tires so it's not just manufacture warranty on those tires as Firestone have claimed.

I'm going to take my car to a different Firestone to see what they have to say.

This is the picture how's the tires look:



The choppy of tire as they described can't be seen and what they said was feeling the outer treads by hand and it feels smooth on 1 direction and rough on the opposite.

[71Corolla]

Which Potenza's exactly do you have? Some are known for being a noisy tire, even when new.

[snake07]

It's a Potenza G019 GRID BL 215/50R17 XL95V. I've had it since June 2008 @ 54k miles and my car got 89k now so it's only been 34k miles on the tires. As you can see from the picture all the treads are still in good shape.

I haven't had this noise untill recently.

[71Corolla]

Going by the pics, your tires don't seem to show any signs of bad struts. They look like they are wearing pretty much perfectly, hmmmmm. Speaking of struts, do you feel your car bounces around excessively, especially over large bumps? 50K miles seems pretty low for a strut to wear out, especially to the point where it's causing excessive tire noise.

Some suspension experts chime in.

BTW, your tire is rated #8 in it's class over at Tirerack.com

edit - I see your car has 89K actually. So it is possible that tire bounce is causing uneven wear and noise.

[snake07]

I can't say for sure if it's considered bouncing excessively over a large pump. The only thing I can feel is the softness of bouncing over a pump and I've been thinking the cause came from a low profile tire I'm using.