Tire Noise After Change: Causes & Solutions

Hi,

"This weekend, I changed the tires on my A3 to summer tires, size 205. Now, when driving, I hear a rumbling noise, similar to what I normally associate with a bad wheel bearing, but it modulates with the wheel speed. Since it didn't occur with the winter tires (size 195), I'm sure it's not the wheel bearings (the car only has 37,000 km). Last year, I also heard this noise, and it seemed to be coming from the rear axle. Now, I've swapped the tires to the front, and as expected, the noise is now coming from the front. I'm not sure if it's just one tire or both."

I haven't noticed anything unusual about the tires, and the rims also appear undamaged. What could be causing this noise? I initially thought it might be due to the tire size, but the difference between 195 and 205 sizes shouldn't be that significant, right?

It doesn't seem to be unbalanced, as there's no vibration in the steering wheel.

Did you swap the tires diagonally, thereby changing the direction of rotation for each tire?

Do you perhaps have the famous saw-tooth effect? https://community.dieselschrauber.org/en/viewtopic.php?t=1065 It also sounds like the wheel bearings are broken. }

Hi, I didn't swap them in an X pattern, just front to back. But the tire doesn't have a specific direction anyway.

Sawtooth effect, I need to look into that, it might be the cause.

A colleague suggested it might be a flat tire. What do you think about that?

Hi Holger,

I've had a similar problem with my winter tires twice this year. It's similar to what you described: a thumping sound (not a high-frequency hum) that increases with speed. I also removed the wheels, had them balanced, and swapped them front to back, but nothing helped. After a very careful visual inspection, it became clear where the problem was coming from. A bulge had formed on the sidewall of the tire. The length of this bulge was about 4-6 cm, and it wasn't really noticeable at first glance, and it couldn't be detected during balancing. I had Vredestein 225 40 18 winter tires, and two of them were damaged like this. I'll never buy Vredestein again.

Regards,
arne

These bumps are not only found on Vredstein .

Holger247 wrote:

A colleague suggested it might be a flat tire. What do you think about that?

I think that's likely.

Comparison:
Last week, I tested the effectiveness of the handbrake and found that it started to lock up after traveling a few meters.
When doing a burnout with the rear wheels spinning, you can only guess that somewhere there's a slight lack of tread depth, but when rolling slowly, I've often noticed a distinct "bubb-bubb-bubb" sound since that attempt, which wasn't there before...

It often happens that the tires on the rear axle need to be cleaned.
It's making a noise. Maybe your shock absorbers are bad.
"Standard suspension? However, only available for front-wheel drive vehicles."
2 new doesn't cost the world

And don't forget to swap the tires, axle by axle, at least for next summer.

I also think it's due to flat spots on the tires. It happens very quickly.

A colleague had the same issue on an older E-Class (W210). He spent ages trying to find the cause of the imbalance (which only occurred when the car was cold). He checked everything from wheel balancing to the Hardy disc, etc. I had experienced something similar with an older S-Class ("truck"), where the DCX system had significant problems with flat spots due to the weight, and I gave him the crucial tip.

He lives near the highway and would always briefly stop the car after a fast drive, allowing the tires to cool down. One time, he left the car on jack stands overnight, and the strange noise that occurred when the tires were cold was completely gone.

Some tires are more susceptible to this than others.
Perhaps the tires were not stored optimally, or they may have deformed due to heat before they were removed. It might help to drive a longer stretch of highway continuously to get them back into shape.