Tires: TIRE NOISE, 2002 nissan altima, quiet tires

Question
Hi,
I bought a used 2002 Nissan Altima 55K miles. The tires are Bridgestone Turanza 205/65R16, I think factory fitted. I can hear noise from the tires at regular intervals while driving. I rotated the tire(front to back) but the noise is there.
The Nissan dealer says I got noisy tires and if I get new tires the noise will go. The tires are still good, so I don't want to invest on new tires now.
Is there such a thing as noise index for tires?
Am confused. Pls. help.  

Answer
Pukar,

I think you are asking if somewhere there is a published list of tires and how noisy they are.

The answer is "sort of no".  

Measuring the noise level of tires is a bit problematic.

First, is that the noise changes depending on what road surface you are on.  That is primarily a function of the road surface.  Even quiet tires will be noisy on noisy road surfaces.

Second is the tire itself.  This is something that could be measured on a smooth drum (and it is!).  But there are several industry methods for doing this and you get different results from each.

And third is the interaction between the tire and the road.  This is the area that really prevents an industry standard.  Because of this interaction, you can get different rank orderings depending on what road surafce you choose.  Some tires will be quiet on one surface and noisy on another - and vice versa.

There can't be a standard test until those issues are resolved, so there isn't an objective ranking that is published.

But you should be aware that a car can wear a pattern into a tire that will generate noise.  It is caused by misalignment and at this point you don't know if the problem is the tire design or the pattern worn into the tires.

My suggestion would be to go to Tire Rack's web site, find the part where tires are reviewed and see what others say.  Becuase this is subjective, keep in mind that most folks with tire problems (or what they think is a tire problem) are going to post, where folks without a complaint don't.  Generally that makes an OE tire rank poorly - just sheer numbers of the same tire going on the same vehicle.  So listen to the folks who are complimentary about the OE tire.  See if you can see why they are complimentary and see how they judged noise generation.