Loud humming from wheels

[MiataGirl]

so i helped this guy rotate his tires today on his civic..and we got everything put together pretty well, but now when he drives it, there's this really loud humming type sound from the front wheel, most likely the front left.

you can start to hear it at about 20 mph, and it progressively gets louder up to about 40. we checked the brakes underneath, and everything *appears* to be normal.

any ideas?

 

[amdskip]

Are the lug nuts completely tight? How much wear is on the tires?

 

[TCPpacket]

make sure the wheels are torqued and put on correctly (centered on the hub).

 

[N8Magic]

Are they directional tires? If so, they can only roll in one direction. Look on the side of the tire for an arrow or something indicating what direction the tire should be rolling.

If they are not, it could be your friend has a warped rim that wasn't causing problems at the back of the car, but when moved to the front (where there is more weight) it causes problems.

I would check if the tire is directional or not first though.

 

[MiataGirl]

Originally posted by: amdskip
Are the lug nuts completely tight? How much wear is on the tires?

yeah they seemed to be pretty tight..i mean i obviously didn't tighten them, hehe, but they seem to be just as tight as before..

 

[Heisenberg]

Out of balance tire or alignment problem perhaps.

 

[Ornery]

Originally posted by: N8Magic
Are they directional tires? If so, they can only roll in one direction. Look on the side of the tire for an arrow or something indicating what direction the tire should be rolling...

...I would check if the tire is directional or not first though.

That sounds right. They're supposed to be rotated front to back, keeping them on the same side they came off.

Tire Rotation

 

[Zenmervolt]

My guess is this: The car has a minor alignment problem at the rear, which caused a slightly different from normal wear pattern on one of the tires, which was not noticed when the tire was in the rear. Then, when the tire was rotated to the front, the difference in wear pattern caused the noise. I'll bet that the noise goes away in a few hundred miles as the tire starts to wear differently.

Ornery, while the X-pattern rotation (used on bias-ply tires) was not favored for use with the first radial tires, modern radials are no longer directional in construction. Granted, some tires have a directional tread, but most radials do not have directional carcasses anymore. Many new car manuals are returning to recommending the X-pattern rotation. Given that the car in question is a Civic, I doubt that it would have directional tires on it. Personally, I go by what the manual says. If the manual says X-pattern, I do that, if it says front to back only, I do that.

ZV

 

[MiataGirl]

yeah..we didn't do the X thing, but just front right to rear right, left front to left rear..

 

[Ornery]

"...the X-pattern rotation (used on bias-ply tires) was not favored for use with the first radial tires..."

Heh, I remember when radials first came out. I was trying to convince my dad they were worth the extra money. They only lasted about 30K miles then!