Tires: Tire noise, goodyear eagle, inflation pressure

Question
I have a 2001 Mitsubishi Diamonte.  I have been experencing significant tire road noise since I got the car 3 years ago with 8000 miles. The noise has not been getting better or worse. I feel the noise is excessive both at slow and high speeds.  I still have the orginal tires which are Goodyear Eagle GA tires(215/60R16 94V made in Australia. I have experimented with tire pressure with very little impact.  Is there anything I could do to the car short of replacing the tires?  Is it the tires or the car or both.  What would you recommend when I get new tires?
My brother who owned a 1997 Diamonte agrees that the noise is greater than in his older car.  

Answer
Dave,

Tire noise is a function of both the road surface and the tire.  Keeping that in mind, it might be that the roads you drive on are just plain noisy and you won't be able to fix the problem.

With 8,000, the tires probably didn't have irregular wear (caused by misalignent, aggravated by low inflation pressure and lack of rotation).  Since the problem hasn't gotten worse, irregular wear is probably not the source.

That leaves the only other option of replacing the tires.  Find out what other folks have noticed and choose tires that work in your area, as the road surface interacts with the tire to produce noise, and the amount of noise generated depends on how the two interact.  Put another way, 2 different tires might react differently and one seems quiter in one area and the reverse is true somewhere else.

Hope this helps.