Tire Noise

compensate

I bought a set of new tires for my 1999 Mazda Protege ES quite a few months ago. They are Nokian Brand (an off-brand), low profile DIRECTIONAL tires.

At first, the tires were great in all aspects. However, over the past two months, the tires have become VERY noisy. The noise now sounds like our Mazda is wearing off-road tires (loud grinding sound). I checked to be sure the tires were installed in the proper direction (since they are directional tires), but that was OK. I had the tires rotated front to rear and balanced, but there was no reduction in noise level.

Does anyone have any idea why this has happened? Is there a chance one or more belts inside the tire structure have failed?

Please help. The noise level is becoming atrocious.

Thanks!

compensate

Also, at least two of the tires have little swirl marks along the sidewall, close to the tread.

Anyone?

Help!

bretfraz

in here:

spindel "Tires, tires, tires" Aug 6, 2001 2:44pm

This is the Tires discussion room in A&A. You'll prolly get a better response from folks who are more knowledgeable about tires.

I wouldn't consider Nokian an "off brand" although they are not well known in the US. They make what is arguably the best winter tires in the world. Nokian is from Finland and are a spin off from Nokia, the telecom giant.

You can learn all about Nokian here:

http://www.nokiantires.com/indexen.html

compensate

for the links!

wtd44

My Firestones on my Ranger pickup are so loud, I can't quite make out what you're saying...

swschrad

they are made to sound so loud, you can't hear the recall stories on TV

wtd44

The local Mercury dealer has supposedly ordered me a set of Goodyear Wranglers to replace the Firestone Wilderness 265/75/15's on my Ford Ranger. The upshot is, Ford now authorizes Lincoln-Mercury Dealerships to do any and all work on the gamut of Ford products. I like! It gives one more avenue for "getting it done."