Tires: Tire Noise Toyota Sienna, target value, visible issues

Question
QUESTION: Thanks in advance for helping. I have a 2004 Toyota Sienna van. Had replaced old tires two at a time, first two front then moved those to back and bought two new ones for front. Been getting LOTS of road noise, so I just replaced back tires that had 40K on them and were in good shape, no visible issues. The tires are Michelin LX 4's 225/60/17 purchased and installed at Sam's Club. Drove home from Sam's and the noise is still prominent and driving me nuts. Do you think this is a shock issue or bad balancing? Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

ANSWER: Kevin,

Where do you think the noise is coming from - front or rear?

I would suggest after you make that determination, you swap the tires front to rear.  Di the noise move?  If not, then it is not the tires.

No, shocks and balancing has nothing to do with noise - except to say, they might generate irregular wear - which wouldn't be an issue in new tires.  So if the noise was still there after the replacing the tires, then it probably isn't the tires.

So do the swap and if the noise moves, you'll know which pair of tires is the problem, and if it doesn't move, you'll know it's not the tires.

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Thanks for the quick response. Mostly rear noise. When I bought the van used it had goodyears, whic I thought might be the problem, turns out it wasn't. The new tires stopped the noise, but as described before the noise is back.

Answer
Kevin,

What you probably have is irregular wear, which is caused by misalignment and aggravted by insufficient rotation practices and insufficient inflation pressure.  So your first step is to get an alibnment.

My experience says that the published alignment tolerances are too wide.  Not the target value, but the allowable deviation from that value.  I think it ought to be half of what is published.

Put another way, the alignment should be within the inner half of the spec.

You should be aware that even vehicles that do not have a pull can be out of alignment.  There are settings where one out of spec condition is offset by another out of spec condition – typically camber vs toe.

The next step is to rotate the tires.  In their new positions, the tires will develop a new wear pattern and wear off the irregular wear that is causing the noise.  This may take some time - we could be talking as long as a year.  The aletrnative is to buy new tires.


First step would be to get an alignment.