Tires: Tire Noise with a 2003 Focus Wagon ZTW, inflation pressure, rear tires

Question
I replaced the original tires this past spring with tires from KUMHO. In the last two weeks I have begun to experience excessive tire noise from the rear tires.

I had the tire pressure checked this past Monday. There are no problems with pulling or braking, no smell of anything burning (which would discount something rubbing). I did read on the KUMHO website that rotating the tires should solve the problem. What do you think?

Thanks in advance

Answer
Hugh,

What you probably have is irregular wear, which is caused by misalignment and aggravated by insufficient inflation pressure and insufficient rotation.

So you need to get the alignment fixed.

Unfortunately, you can't undo tire wear.  Rotating the tires will put the tires with the irregular wear in a different position and perhaps they will wear a different pattern into the tires.  But it has happened that the old pattern never gets erased and you'll have to replace them.