I'm noticing that I have a lot of road noise coming from the front of my car. If I slightly turn my wheel left while I'm driving it goes away, but the sound (loud hollow drum like) is constant when driving straight or with the wheel turned right.

My car doesn't feel out of alignment, but it sounds like really loud road noise and there's slight vibration under my feet and in the steering wheel. Could it be an alignment/balancing issue?

Any thoughts?

 

Most likely tires. How many miles are on them?

Get under there and take a good hard look at the inner edges of your tires on the front. I'm betting you have some feathering going on there.

 

I'll check it out. My tires are only a year or so old but have put 30K miles on them and that's all they were supposed to be good for.

 

In my experience with tires on this car, 30k is gonna be at the very top end of the lifecycle you could expect. I've never really run any past 20k, although I replace them before they hit the wear bars for safety's sake (not saying everyone should do this, just personal preference).

I had a set of Falken Ziex 512's on this car at one time that turned into noisy lumps of sh*t after about 10k.

 

I commuted for over a year and put about 35K on my car. So that ate up the life of the tires pretty quickly.

 

jjones, I would try rotating the tires and seeing if the noise changes. if not, based on what you are describing, it sounds like the left front hub is starting to go on you. They will tend to make a whirring sound as they go and will change with the speed of the car.

Not a tough fix, but if not taken car of in time, it can get really ugly. TRUST ME. I had a hub go bad on my truck and I figured I had lots of time left. Well, 2,000 miles went by and finally the bearing exploded on me and my one front tire started leaning in about 20 degrees and made the front end of the vehicle really, really sloppy. Even started to eat up the rotor. Thankfully I was only 2 blocks from home when it let go.

 

I've had to replace the unit bearing hubs on my Jeep Grand Cherokee just about every year - apparently they don't like being hooked up to 33" tires. :0 Not a difficult DIY job however if you have some tools.

I hope that's not the case. I still lean toward tires since the noise is constant while in a straight line, but you should definitely investigate the hubs too as suggested.

 

Chris X, I hear you on the hubs. Try running 37" tires. The IFS systems do not like the bigger tires. I have replaced 3 hubs so far on my Expedition. OH well, if you play, you gotta pay.

 

Even though it is most likely the tires causing so much road noise... has anyone ever taken into consideration into applying Dynamat around their car? doors, trunk, hood etc., It's mostly used for sound systems to stop rattling and what not, but I read an article today in this months Crutchfield magazine that people apply it to also kill road noise.... Anyone ever hear of this method?

 

Yes, Dynamat is suitable to insulate the car from road noise. I have used it before and it works quite nicely to quell road noise (which does enhance audio quality inside the car), although a bit expensive.

 

Thanks for the feedback. Rotated and balanced the tires and still no difference. I'm taking it back in today and I'll mention the Hub and see what they think. How expensive is it to replace the Hub.