I just bought my G35 last week..and notice there's a lot of road noise, which obviously is common since its a sports car..but can anyone recommend any type of solution to reduce it...what about the Dynamit padding in the doors..would that help any?

Thanks

 

new tires could help

 

what kinda tires?

 

falken 452's are pretty quiet, your alignment is probably off (what caused your tire noise) welcome to the curse of negative camber!
sound deadening materials will improve things a bit, but to most people it requires more money and effort than they are willing to exert. i would reccomend taking a look at Second Skin Audio "luxury liner" to put underneath your carpets. if you do your doors, do them the right way, or you will be very dissapointed.

 

smaller rims, bigger tires (more sidewall), Greddy EVO Exhaust (quieter exhaust), +1 on the luxury liner.. those are awesome if you'll take the time to do them right.. it is a big difference but yeah..

 

Michelin probably SPENDS the most per tire model on acoustic modeling and testing and improvement than any other brand worldwide, just as they spend the most on stronger exotic structural materials per tire built.

If you really care about tires and noise this 2004 PHD Dissertation is a good place to start understanding the problem.
http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/theses/ava...ssertation.pdf

What it proves is that as the tread wears down the tires get louder if the tire was tuned BRAND NEW to be extra quiet! And how much you can quieten a tire by tuning in the first place.

 

Hello RedG35VA. Road noise is caused by tires. As air is trapped under the tire, it creates noise. Some tires are very noisy, some are not. It all depends on the design of the tire. To find a quiet tire, you'll need to shop around and compare the results/opinions of others regarding tire road noise. Generally, a tire that dissipates water well will also be relatively quiet, as it will also dissipate air from being trapped under the tire and creating noise. Low priced tires tend to be on the noisy side, as corners have to be cut in the tires design in order to maintain a low price. Conversely, for the same reason, higher priced tires tend to be quieter. As always, we get what we pay for.

Used tires can have an uneven, or cupped wear pattern on the tire that will also create road noise. These undesirable wear patterns can occur from an out of alignment condition, lack of timely rotation and re-balancing, worn out MacPherson struts/shock absorbers, or a combination thereof.

I hope this has been of help. Good luck with it.


Steve - Hi-Tech Oil Co.
B.F.Goodrich T/A Certified Tire Specialist

 

there we have it, well put. thanks for the detailed input!

 

Hello SilviaVsSupra. My pleasure. Cars have been my life, both as a hobby and professionally, for the past 30 years, so this is the field I know and it is always rewarding to help others.


Steve - Hi-Tech Oil Co.
B.F.Goodrich T/A Certified Tire Specialist

 

Hitecoil.. thank you very much ! ALl that info def. is helping me narrow down to waht kinda tires.. now ive heard Michellin MXV4's /pilots are one of th best tires out there...is there any other brand you can recommend? Thanks

 

Hello RedG35VA. My pleasure. When it comes to tire selection, the best tire will be the one that fills your needs the best and that will vary from driver to driver, many times considerably. This is why there are so incredibly many different tires to choose from. What tire may be a good choice for one driver may not be for another. So to answer your question, it depends.

What are the most important criteria for you in tire performance? A quiet tire, handling, braking, wet weather performance, winter/snow performance, tread life, will you be using winter tires, appearance, very high speed performance/safety, price? Also, what tire size is currently on the vehicle and is it the stock size? Year/make/model of vehicle? Do you want the best tires money can buy, or are you on a budget? Need more information before making an appropriate recommendation for you.

One good source of information is ---> www.TireRack.Com They have customer survey results regarding various performance criteria with various tire brands and models. Keep in mind though that the information is coming from untrained and inexperienced sources, so sometimes you have to take that with a grain of salt. For example; I've read motorists comments along the lines of, "I had the O.E. brand XXX tires on my car and they were terrible! I rotated them every 15,000 - 20,000 miles and the vibration from them was horrible! The tire shop couldn't balance them! I replaced them with brand XXX and they are great!" lol Well, if a motorist doesn't rotate their tires more often than that, the tires are going to be so cupped up they will almost be square! lol So naturally they are going to vibrate and no amount of balancing will help the situation. But, when they installed the new tires, "Presto!", no more vibration. lol The comments from motorists at Tire Rack can be rather amusing, if they weren't so way off base and leading others astray. I've read other comments along the lines of, "I have 30,000 miles on these tires now and they show no wear! Fantastic tires!" Uh huh, R-I-G-H-T. lol Maybe we can sell that person the Brooklyn Bridge for a fair price? lol So again, get your grain of salt out and don't believe everything you read.

Are these the O.E. tires you are having road noise problems with? What kind are they? How many miles are on them? Have you looked closely at the wear patterns on the tires to see if that is the cause of the road noise? If you use a rag to wipe the tire down of dirt and gently rub your hands back and forth across the tread, you can actually feel irregular wear patterns on the tires, i.e. wavy patterns, cupping, etc. Beware that if the vehicle has an out of alignment condition and has worn the tire down to the steel chord on one shoulder and you come along rubbing your hand over that, you'd better have a first aid kit handy and possibly a tourniquet, because your hand will be sliced open like you dragged it across razor blades! I made that mistake the first day on the job when I was a kid and did I ever learn my lesson! "Why is my hand getting wet?....ohhh, it's blood!!!" lol

Finally, there is also another possibility for the noise you are experiencing and that is a bad wheel bearing. Sometimes a wheel bearing that has gone bad can put up quite a roaring sound and you would swear it was tire noise. So, check what you have, give me some more information and I'll see what I can come up with for you.

Steve - Hi-Tech Oil Co.
B.F.Goodrich T/A Certified Tire Specialist

 

man..you are the best source for tires ever! thanks again! well basically here's the run down..i just bought the car 2 weeks ago with 22,500 miles its a '03 35 coupe. I've never really owned a sports car, except for a '92 300ZX for few months..im used to driving a lexus es300 and gs300..so i was ready for some "roughness," of a sports car..i expected this car to be a lil rough compared to lexuses obviously.. so its not really a problem that i have..im just trying to find a better way to just reduce the road noise. My mechanic said the Michellin MXV4 pilots are one of the best overall tires out there..smooth, great wet weather traction, speed etc.. they are pricey (approx $200 per tire) but i guess, like you said..its what you get for your money. The stock tires are Goodyear Eagles on the car..235 50R 17's all around. Except for the michellin are there any other tires that deliver great wet weather traction, smoother ride, and performance?

 

i am going to fix my camber with a A arm, got some tokico and maybe go with a diff brand tire instead of toy t1r.. maybe that will improve me car.. and the ride

 

Hello RedG35VA. Thanks for the kind words. There's a lot more to know about tires than most folks realize and after 25 years in the business I still learn something new every day.
With 22,500 miles on the car and you saying that Goodyear Eagles are currently on the car, I am going to say they are probably the O.E. tires, which are the Eagle RS-A's and after all those miles, I am sure they are going to have some uneven wear patterns on them, contributing to the tire noise. The Eagle RS-A was a pretty good tire for its time, but it is a very old design and has since been surpassed by newer and much better tire designs. The Eagle RS-A has always been a pretty noisy tire and I have never liked them. I have found them to be a very mediocre tire in every regard, but again, to be fair, it is a very old tire design and I am a little surprised that Goodyear is even still offering them. Being the contracted law enforcement tire, I suspect this is probably the reason they are still being manufactured. So don't make the mistake of holding this against Goodyear and looking down your nose at all of their tires, as this would be a major mistake. Goodyear manufactures some of the best, highest technology tires in the world.
Next, as to the size, I looked up your vehicle in two different tire size guides, (www.TireRack.Com and also, www.GoodyearTires.com), and your vehicle is supposed to have two different tire sizes on it. The front tires are a P225/50VR-17 93V and the rear tires are a P235/50VR-17 95V. Check this to be certain. There is what is called a tire placard on the car, which is a small white decal about the size of your palm installed on the end of one of the doors, or where the door latches, or on the back side of the glove box, or on the back side of the fuel door, or on the back side of the trunk lid. This tire placard will list the correct tire sizes and inflation pressures for your car. Tire size guides can once in a great while be incorrect, but the tire placard is always correct. It is important to install the correct tire sizes for safe, balanced handling and also safe ABS brake operation. I would not recommend deviating from the recommended stock sizes.
There are many good tire companies out there, however between Goodyear, (which is the largest tire company in the world), Michelin, B.F.Goodrich, (now owned by Michelin), and Bridgestone, these four are the largest tire companies in the world and have the most market share. From a consumer standpoint, I feel it is generally best to choose a tire from one of these four companies and I say that because these four companies are the largest tire companies in the world and as such have a very large research and development budgets, to be able to offer consumers the latest advancements in tire design. Smaller tire companies simply can't invest as much into their research and development budgets and consequently don't generally have the latest, most advanced tire designs.
Now, you have stipulated that your priorities in selecting a tire are great wet weather traction, smooth ride and performance. Considering the tire noise issue, I will of course assume you want quiet tires too! lol I am assuming that you live in a region of the country where snow is not an issue, as you didn't mention this, so I will leave snow traction entirely out of the picture. However, with a high performance vehicle and these tire sizes, if snow traction is a consideration at all, you'd be much, much better off using a set of dedicated winter tires instead of the jack of all trades and master of none all season tires anyway.
There are some outstanding tires available in your vehicles tire sizes. I will list them below with links to the tires as well. It's late, I can't sleep and you need a hand with tires, so here we go!

1. Goodyear Eagle ResponsEdge - http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires....nLoad=S#Survey

This tire is one of the most technologically advanced tires in the world and is a particularly smooth riding, quiet tire with excellent handling characteristics. Exactly what you are looking for. This tire has a Kevlar belt placed inside the outside sidewall of the tire for superior handling/steering response, along with three different tread zones and two different rubber compounds to deliver excellent steering response, wet weather traction and handling all in one tire. The tire also has a rim flange protector built into the sidewall of the tire to protect your vehicles expensive alloy wheels. Tire Rack's survey results rank this tire very, very highly. They sell the front tire size for only $141 and the rears for only $153. Nice prices! Many comments from motorists posting on TireRack.Com saying they replaced their Michelin's with these Eagle ResponsEdge tires and the improvement in ride, smoothness, quietness, wet traction and handling was very noticeable. The ResponsEdge also comes with a 50,000 mile warranty, which is phenomenal for a high performance tire! Most high performance tires carry no mileage warranty at all. Right now, Goodyear also gives you a $40 discount with these tires in the form of a cash card. An all around great tire and great deal on the price.

2. Michelin Pilot HX MXM4 - http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires....=(Y)&minLoad=S

Tire Racks customer survey results for this tire are not that stellar, especially in the wet traction department. The tire doesn't appear to have a rim flange protector, it has no mileage warranty and in a head-to-head comparison of the survey results at TireRack.Com, it doesn't fair well compared to the Goodyear Eagle ResponsEdge. Tire Rack sells these tires for $166 for the front and $208 for the rear, so higher priced than the Eagle ResponsEdge too. Doesn't appear to be a good choice.

3. Bridgestone Potenza RE960AS Pole Position -

http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires....nLoad=S#Survey

Tire Rack's survey results rank this tire very highly. They sell this tire for $149 for the front and $177 for the rear, so about the same price as the ResponsEdge. The Bridgestone tire offers better snow traction than the ResponsEdge, but the ResponsEdge handles better in the dry and is superior in the wet, as well as having a better ride.

5. Michelin Pilot Sport A/S -
http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires....nLoad=S#Survey

Another good tire, but again outclassed in the survey results at TireRack.com by both the Goodyear Eagle ResponsEdge and the Bridgestone Potenza RE960AS. Tire Rack sells them for $181 for the front and $197 for the rear.
Whichever tires you choose, be sure to purchase the road hazard warranty as well. Spending this kind of money for tires and then not having them protected against nails, screws, curbing damage, etc., in my opinion is not wise. Make sure when you have the new tires mounted that you have a computerized four wheel alignment done so the tires wear well from the get go.
Lastly, check out your local tire stores and see what kind of prices they have to offer vs Tire Rack. Many times when you add on the shipping , mounting and balancing charges to Tire Rack tires vs locally purchased tires, the price difference really isn't much and there's a lot to be said for local customer service after the sale and general convenience. Local stores will also offer their own credit card offers with up to 12 months interest free financing. There's a lot of differences to consider beyond just price.
I hope this has been of help. Let me know how you make out with your tire purchase. Evaluating your needs vs the available choices, I think the Goodyear Eagle ResponsEdge is your best choice.

Steve - Hi-Tech Oil Co.