alex911s

When I bought my S, I opted on an 18 inch wheels that was on another used car on the lot, it originally have 17 which is the OEM.. I drove the car today longer than normal, i dont like the humming sound on the 18's , is this tire wear? or should I go back to the 17's... what are the recommended tires on the 18's..? I dont have this noise when I test drove the car with teh 17's..reminds me of same sound on my cayenne S after, lowering and changing to 20's.. right now it has 265/35 18's S-02's. thanks for your help...

Turboflyer

I think it boils down too three things in no particular order, tread pattern, temperature and pressure. 17, 18 19 or 20s the rolling contact area is the same give the same width. Having said that maybe a shorter side wall transmits more road noise. This would be a good question to ask one of the major suppliers like Tire Rack. They do so objective testing to a point.

arenared

17s or 18s won't matter. It depends on the tread pattern/tire and also very importantly the type of tread wear. If your alignment is off, it will feather when wearing causing raised edges which make a lot of noise. Some tires are more susceptible to uneven wear/noise than others. If you have feathering of the tread blocks, you can do one or both of two things. One, change your alignment although I'm convinced the very nature that our cars run a reasonable amount of rear toe in says there will be some feathering over time. Second, reverse the tires so the feathering wears down and feathers the other side, then switch, etc. I usually run my directional tires backwards in the summer to even out any feathering.

alex911s

Thanks guys, we test drove today at Sharkwerks, during the free code reading day Looks like the uneven tirewear on the front tires are the culprit.. now I need new front tires... searched S-02's on tirerack, but not showing up , i see S-02a doesnt look the same.. is the S-03 same tire, just new release?

Jay Laifman

Make sure it's not the wheel bearings! I just reported finally having my left rear wheel bearing fixed after thinking it was the rear tires for over a year! I even bought top of the line PS2s to fix it and tried to convince myself it was better for months. The difference was amazing. It's quiet and smooth now.

The best I can describe the sound is that I thought I was driving in a pick up truck with mild off road tires. For a while I also tried to convince myself that it was just the louder sports car sound from a small mid engine car. But, in the end, it was just a bad wheel bearing. The absense of the sound is amazing!

arenared

S-03 is different. If you still have some decent tread left on the fronts, run them backwards and go thrash them a little. That will even out the front wear. Too bad. I couldn't make it to the code reading yesterday.

agentpennypacker

I would recommend a Mercedes Benz for a quiet ride.

alex911s

Go drive my car before you make your useless point
messing with you man... I hate Mercedez,,,LOL