Mary J. Davis

I'm a long time Honda owner with a Honda Civic at this point in time. My Civic has 90K+ miles and I've been through 2 sets of tires. The first set (from the factory) lasted 30K miles, but after a few thousand miles they started to make wobble noises. I noticed that I've always had a lot of road noise. Is there any tire that the readers have used that will make my car quieter. Need recommendations.

johng35

I changed my factory Turanzas to a set of Beidgestone Pole Position RE960 for performance reasons, but they were noticablly quieter than the stock tires.

they are a unidirectional tire tread which I think helps with noise- so look for tires that are unidirectional ( they are meant to be installed and roll one direction- which means that they have to be installed properly for left side of ar and for the right side of car )

I would suggest going to TireRack.com- input paramters and read reviews of tires. They indicate road noise etc.

BlueEM2

iTrader: (1)

Yea ... non directional treads are the quietest... Although I just got a pair of Michelin Hydroedge and I find them very quiet... they are still brand new tho.

sdaidoji

iTrader: (1)

unh...
no, unidirectional is meant to evacuate water better.
the design and size of the tread blocks all determine the noise, some other factors in too, like the hardness of softness of the compound. anyone that used snow tires knows what i mean. RE960's have very small grooves and somewhat larger blocks than the turanza, so it's easier to make then quiet. Although the re960 are still considered all-season, so don't expect much performance from them. compound is hard.

BlueEM2

iTrader: (1)

Yea, I said non directional are the quietest right... Any directional tread will give you more road noise than your conventional tire.

sdaidoji

iTrader: (1)

not quite.
it's the overall design, nothing related to the directional or non. asymmetric depends how they did design them.

BlueEM2

iTrader: (1)

Every directional tread I've seen, and every tire specialist I've talked to has said directional treads create more road noise than non directional! ALAS!!! Prove me wrong!!!

sdaidoji

iTrader: (1)

I am a tire process engineer
Work in the corporate of a multi-national tire company, remember?

BlueEM2

iTrader: (1)

Ohhh yea.... but then why does everyone say nondirectional are better.. and I mean everyone I've talked to with any tire knowledge!! Enlighten me with your knowledge damnit!

sdaidoji

iTrader: (1)

trouble is that it's just too subjective...
theoretically and the the measurements show that there should not be a difference, as stated above.
Does your new directional tires makes more noise?
depends a lot from what tires you drove before too.

And i used all types, but i really don't care about noise, CAI and "some" muffler and all...

sdaidoji

iTrader: (1)

remember when some tried to push some sticky azenis to you and i stopped that? it would not fit your use of the car

BlueEM2

iTrader: (1)

Haha I'm not trying to give you a hard time. I've just never heard anyone say directional treads were as quiet as standard treads. I kinda wanted a reason why that's all. I do believe you. I had non directional treads at first which were loud (bridgestone potenza r32 i think.) Then I had directional Good Year Triple Treads which were louder, now I have michelin hydroedge which aren't loud, but its too early in the game to tell

sdaidoji

iTrader: (1)

not a problem
it's just that this is as subjective as lowering the car but wants a stock ride thingie...
as i always say, me old man butt is harder than the youg'uns

sdaidoji

iTrader: (1)

Now back on topic, Mary, one suggestion is to go to tirerack and give a peek on the reviews of the tires.
http://www.tirerack.com/tires/index.jsp
as said before, the best is to see which ones are best reviewed for noise. you could also just call them and ask. Tire Rack is pretty good company to deal with.

Too Tall

I put Michelin MXV4 tires on my 07 Civic. Way better everything than the stock, and a lot quieter. I live in Sunny California, so I have not tested them in snow, ice, or off road.

I have been doing demo rides on a lot of new cars, thinking I wanted to buy a new one. It is very difficult to find a quiet car under $30,000. I think current car design has a lot to do with tire noise and the 07 Civic is one of the worst. My guess is unibody design with only minimal rubber mounts between road and driver transmits more tire noise to the driver.

There is a lot of expensive junk being sold as new cars these days. The Honda Crosstour, CR-Z, and Accord were better than most.

glennnzo

Mary,
Dd you happen to notice if the rear tires are scalloping on the inside causing the tires to be noisy? If so you need to have the two rear control arms replaced they were designed wrong from Honda and there are new ones available NOT WARRRENTIED! I believe this problem only exists on 2006-2007 models.

jordan1794

I believe those arms are warrantied, but warranty runs out at 60k so it wouldn't matter...

I just went through that, but seeing as how I brought the car in under warranty for road noise, and they didn't figure it out, when i went back outside of warranty and made a few calls I got the repair for 100$
(Was quoted 420$ for the arms and installation,+70$ for the new alignment)

speedy25

I have some 'stones on a civic. They suck! Great motorcycle tires. Bad car tires. (my opinion)

Yokohama touring tires on my Corolla are very quiet. I was very impressed with them for being a "budget" tire.

-SP

BlueEM2

iTrader: (1)

I'm kinda glad this got brought back up because I can honestly now say the Hydroedges are just as loud as any of the other tires I've had. I'm starting to think it's actually wheel bearing noise.

anibis

I never had Hydroedges but have owned Michelin's on and off for the past 10 years, they were always quiet and stayed that way through the life of the tire. I'd still be running them but they're so expensive these days.

I had a noisy wheel bearing that I initially thought was tire noise, it sounded very similar, kinda like an off-road truck tire.

My wheel was never loose but I isolated it to the left side and replaced the bearing, no more noise.

If you want to rule out the tires put the front end on jack stands, start it up and get to a speed where the noise usually occurs. The noise was exactly the same on jack stands w/my car. If the noise seems to be coming from a rear wheel then jack it up and spin each wheel by hand, listen for any noise and see how freely it spins.

gearbox

iTrader: (95)

i have some general altimax hp directionals and they are one of the quietest and best riding tire (soft going over bumps) ive ever had, even at 35psi. i actually like em more than michelins. they are not even that expensive compared to others.

ubnpast

iTrader: (4)

Ive had the Altimax HPs on my old car, decent tire, sidewalls felt pretty soft in driving, they picked up a ton of stones while driving, but I was suprised on how well they were in the snow.

One disappointment is I touched a curb and the sidewall blew out, not bad for the price though.

palsana

how much does a road hazard warranty matter in a tire? the more mile waranty more expensive the tire. I had always bought tires from COSTCO (atleast since 2006), and it was always GOODYEAR BRDGESTONE IMPREZA or potenza and at one time, in the very first month after installing the goodyear tires, the road hazard warranty kicked in and had to be replaced.
Got full price back for the tire, however, what does that tell us all about GOODYEAR BRIDGESTONE TIRES

gearbox

iTrader: (95)

yeah thats the only bad thing is soft sidewall tires are fragile. im careful with curbs so no issues with me. the rocks yeah i cant stand it but every other tire ive owned would do the same and there are tons of loose pebbles around here. just wanted to try a softer tire this time around. i like the handling from hard compounds, but the ride is terrible and the tires develop flat spots after only a day of sitting.

i never get road hazard, its a waste. if you pop one tire bad enough to replace it, you need to buy two tires anyway because driving with one new tire is dangerous (for example if the front left had to be replaced, you would need to buy a front right as well). and if its small enough to be patched, its only $10. i really hate when it happens, but in 100k miles of driving i only had one serious tire damage (bolt in sidewall). the rest were just patches. its like extended warranty, yeah you might use it once but you will never break even.