I bought a 2019 Prius XLE from a dealer in South Florida pretty much sight unseen. I've only driven it around town but depending on the pavement the road noise seems to be quite loud. I don't really remember the road noise being that loud in the 2008. I'm half tempted to go test drive a different Prius at a local dealer just to compare. Has anybody transitioned from a Gen 2 to a Gen 4 and able to offer some feedback? Anybody got any tips on how to quell road noise?
Oh man I once bought a cheap set of tires from discount tire and the road noise from them was so loud you could barely have a conversation at highway speeds. The next set I bought I sprang for the good ones and the difference in road noise was night and day. The dealer probably slapped on the cheapest rubber they could find and called it a day.
Bought my used 2020 Gen IV XLE with only 6k miles on odometer this past March. While I will admit it is noisier than my wife's GX-460, it's not any louder than the 2012 Honda Accord EX-L it replaced.
Yep tires can make a huge difference but how does the tread wear look? If something is out of alignment it'll make quite a bit of noise, too. (And brakes can make noise if they're having issues like a caliper not releasing all the way or a pad rubbing, especially on the non-caliper side.) When we replaced the Toyo tires that came with my wife's 2017 with General Altimax RT43's and they are a little louder but the Toyo's didn't last 25,000 miles so wanted the longer lasting tires. (The Altimax are rated at 65,000 miles)
