Who knew?
The tires have foam bands glued around the inside of the tread for road noise? Apparently, they aren't holding up very well and are causing tire balance issues. That seems like a bad idea from the start.
From the department of great ideas that become terrible in practice...
The stock tires on our Tesla were like that. Tire noise is becoming a major contributor to interior noise with quiet/silent drivetrains.
The ones in my Michelins were in perfect shape when I pulled the worn out tires after about 4 years. I see 2018 as a production date on that VW tire - I wonder what the planned lifespan was?
Very common among OE fitments in high end cars. McLaren Pirellis are like that. Michelin does it for some OE applications, too.
In reply to Andy Hollis :
Ford is using them on something. I heard about them through a Ford tech that says they are getting a number of warranty claims due to the foam releasing from the carcass and bunching up in one spot.
I saw a ton of that at Audi when I worked there. All that debris looks like the tire was over heated?
Heck, Michelin now has a totally new tread design to cut down on tire noise aimed at EVs.
yeah, foam in the tires itself isn't new.. but it's not completely unsurprising that as these tires become more and more of a comodity and the prices get driven down that the quality issues might also increase some what.
I wasn't aware that the cross climate 2 was really aimed at EVs.. but it's an absolutely phenomenal 3.5 season tire.
EVs have brought the road noise conversation forward in a way that wasn't as big of a thing 10 years ago.
Mazdas pre 2017 are absolutely noisier than the 2017 and newer ones..
I know we like to complain about the death of cheap cars... but man.. there's hardly a bad new car on sale today.
quieter tires? I'm listening
Is there a way to search for these? Are there particular manufacturers/brands that are trustworthy?
TravisTheHuman said:quieter tires? I'm listening
Is there a way to search for these? Are there particular manufacturers/brands that are trustworthy?
Yet another odd quirk of the North American tire vendors.
Go to any tire vendor website in the UK or Europe and all tires are rated in decibels.
But here that info is regarded as super secret for some reason. Seriously, try and find decibel ratings on tirerack or discount tire. It won't be there
I don't get it.
The Euro tire ratings actually include a noise rating. You can look them up here: https://eprel.ec.europa.eu/screen/product/tyres
Keith and I posting the same info at the same time 
Jinx
I was thinking this was tires that played music.
In reply to spacecadet (Forum Supporter) :
Did Mazda start using these acoustic tires or something different?
The only slight complaint i have with the GR86 is that the Michelin Pilot Sport All Season tires on it howl so loud. So I'm following this thread.
The road on the way to Willow Springs plays the William Tell Overture at 45mph
The road on the way to Willow Springs plays the William Tell Overture at 45mph
TIL that Acoustic Tires are a thing.
In reply to Purple Frog :
About a year or eighteen months ago, I tried to find the quietest touring tire with decent grip/performance for my Frisbee twin's daily/road trip wheels just because the tire noise is so intrusive. I posted on here and folks suggested trying searches for European tires that have decibel ratings.
The issue I ran into is that I would find a promising looking Euro tire called say, the Tunzurra Touring Eco +4. I'd start searching the same tire company's offerings in the States and find no exact match, but would find a model with very similar-looking, but not identical tread called the Tunzurra Touring XLT Greendream offered in the same size. Searching to try and find out if they were the same tire/construction (and therefore have the same quiet behavior) was inconclusive, and sometimes revealed another Stateside option with identical-appearing tread to the Euro tire, but a different tread wear rating, and offered in different sizes, and this time called something like Tunzurra Performance Greendream +4. 😖
Similar situations played out with multiple different tire manufacturers. I figured since there doesn't seem to be an easy way to correlate specific tires with confidence, and I'm not aware of an easy way to buy Euro tires in the US, the European rating system is not particularly helpful, unfortunately. I'm very happy to be corrected if someone on here knows differently.
In reply to ae86andkp61 (Forum Supporter) :
Unfortunately as you found, lots of tires are only offered in 1 market or the other. But there are some out there that are common across the 2 markets and have the Euro labeling available (such as some of the Nokian snow tires, for example). It's entirely possibel that there just isn't a common-market tire that fits what you're looking for though.
Not only an issue from the inside. Stand next to any busy road and you hear basically ALL tire noise.
I am not sure how different this is than "the old days", but much heavier cars with much wider tires would seem, to be a recipe for lots of tire noise, and I am not even talking about the trucks with the horrendously loud off-road tires.
In reply to aircooled :
It has to be the wide tires with a low aspect ratio combined with the unibody construction and hard bushings for that crisp handling.
I had an 87 Town Car that was silent. No road noise, no tire noise. no engine noise, and very little wind noise. But it was a body-on-frame vehicle with lots of rubber isolation between me and the road. Everything about it was soft. It was the best road car I've ever owned. Yet another car I should have never sold.
aircooled said:Not only an issue from the inside. Stand next to any busy road and you hear basically ALL tire noise.
I am not sure how different this is than "the old days", but much heavier cars with much wider tires would seem, to be a recipe for lots of tire noise, and I am not even talking about the trucks with the horrendously loud off-road tires.
A lot of that noise is air being forced out from under the tires. It's fairly logical that a wider tire will make more noise as the air has further to go. A greater land/sea ratio (tread vs grooves) from a high performance tire will also make more noise. A set of Toyo R888s are fairly loud, as those minimal grooves wear down they get very loud.
In reply to Keith Tanner :
I ran a set of 285/35R18 Federal 595 RS-RR tires on the G35 that sounded like mud grips. They were the noisiest tires I've ever owned.
iansane said:I saw a ton of that at Audi when I worked there. All that debris looks like the tire was over heated?
Heck, Michelin now has a totally new tread design to cut down on tire noise aimed at EVs.
I can't handle how ugly this tread is. Sorry, I'm needy.
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