Factory Tires and Road Noise

I'm just not the complaining type...

 

Different tires require different air pressures. Different loads require different air pressures. My guess is that Toyota is also playing a bit of a numbers game with the Two ECO because lower weight should amount to lower required air pressure. Increasing pressure while reducing weight could increase your fuel economy.

If you want to determine the proper air pressure for your tires, when they are cold make a chalk mark straight across the tread of each tire. Drive the car with a typical load a short distance then check the chalk. It should be wearing evenly across the tread, if it is not adjust your pressure until it is. If it wears in the middle lower the pressure, wears on the edges raise the pressure.

You can also math it to get you in the ballpark.

Step 1) Assuming all four tires match take the max load printed on the tire and multiply it by four. This is the maximum weight your four tires can safely carry.

Step 2) Divide the gross weight of the car (found on door placard, this is maximum rated weight of the car + passengers and load) by the number you got in step 1. This is the % of the tire's max load you should be carrying.

Step 3) Multiply the max load PSI listed on the tire by the number you got in step 2. This gives you optimal tire pressure (in terms of tire wear) assuming max load. With a car this will get you fairly close as the max load is not very high. If you did this on a 3/4 ton truck you will be over inflated unless you're carrying max load.

You can get more precise by using a scales under each tire so you know the actual weight each tire carries (don't forget to have your standard load in it including you and your standard passengers) but I'm assuming most people here don't have access to these scales. You could go to your local truck stop and get a weight on each axle if you cared to.

Personally I don't think too much about tire pressure in the cars while on the street. The lowest I can go while keeping the stupid light off is my general thought. My Jeep is sitting somewhere around 10 - 12 psi cold right now. I drove it up to the mountains over the weekend and then dropped the air pressure to 15 psi hot (from my standard cold pressure of 25ish) then played on some rocks. When I got back to the highway I was too impatient to wait for the compressor to fill them back up so I just came home, on the interstate, at speeds as high as 75 mph. I do this nearly every weekend along with the three to four other Jeeps in my group. No one has ever had a tire failure. Granted this weekend we're going on a 4 - 5 hour drive to the trail, so I'll have the tires inflated back to my 25ish before we leave, but that is more about peace of mind and to keep it from wandering on the highway as much.

 

Dealer had no issue with 42PSI. Did not blink an eye on all 3 cars.

 

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Ran 40/42/44/46/48/51 since 2002 and had no issues with tire wear or blowouts. Did need to see the dentist a lot

 

Thats because 42 is the ultimate answer to the ultimate question.
Now if I lived on a pothole road I would go down to 38/36 maybe. Not!

 

Check at Tire Rack website, and inquire into what is important in a tire, and road noise & road comfort to my way of thinking are very important part of your driving experience & the tire is mostly causing this. Check info. on The Continental TrueContact tire where it is tested against, and The Hankook Kinergy PT 737,and The Michelin Defender T+H, and The Pirelli P4 Four Seasons Plus, and also Continental has a new tire out ControlContact from what I have read is even an improvement to the TrueContact and after reading these test the TrueContact is the best. But everyone have different desires in what they expect in a tire. Me I have contacted Continental and they have advise me they are going to have a spring sales promotion. So I will buy me 4 TrueContacts or 4 ControlContacts, because they deliver everything that's important to me in tires for my 2012 Prius Plugin. So that's my thoughts about what I am going to do about tire noise, and or road noise.

 

For tire pressure, I ran a strip of duct tape across the treads and watched to see where it wore through first. In the middle, over inflated, edges first under inflated. From there you can decide how much to over inflate or under inflate to achieve your goal of MPG or handling. I personally will gladly sacrifice a couple MPG for better tire wear.

Back to the noise issues, I found tire reviews that grade for noise. Reviews where people write in, it seems that everybody has different experiences with wear and noise. I put some tires on my sons Honda that I ran on my gen II Prius without any noise problems but on his car they drone like being inside passenger jet. In my Prius I have run about 4 sets of tires, all different brands each time. I have had differing MPGs but never any noise that seemed above other cars I have driven. The drive train is so quiet that road noise is all I do hear but overall it is quiet on all sets of tires. It might just be luck as to whether you have noise or not. What I hate about tires is that they discontinue them after a number of years. The best tires I ever had are no longer made. :-(

 

This was a control Test of Hankook PT H737 & Michelin Defender T&H & The Continental TrueContact & ControlContact tires all very equal to each other: Tire Test Results : Seeking Quantity and Quality in Long-Wearing Standard Touring All-Season Tires

 

I have found driving on the original tyres that on some surfaces it is deathly quiet, but on others is really noisy. Conclusion:. It's the road surface that causes the noise and Not the tyre!

 

It can be both. Switching back from our snow tires to oldish all-seasons (with a previous car), I noticed a distinct increase in tire noise, think I even pulled over to have a look, make sure everything was ok. Worn tires in particular, get noisier.