Road noise with the 15" Toyo tires

Just some general tire talk here.
Some tires are louder on coarse pavement than others. My otherwise fairly quiet 2000 Corolla is prone to road noise. With the OEM Firestone FR500 tires, road noise was quite loud. I got the best rated tire for noise at that time, Yokohama Avid Touring tires, and they made a very noticeable improvement.
Because the standard tires on my Prius C had such a low rating for noise (among other things) from crowdsourced feedback on Tire Rack, I put Ecopia tires on the day I bought it the car. I replaced them with Michelin Energy saver A/S tires, and they were a bit less noisy than the Ecopias.
Unless some newer tire comes along in two years, I plan to put the Michelins on my Two Eco. With any luck the Toyos are a very noisy tire, and replacing them will improve the road noise.
Unfortunately the tires that rank the best for quietness at Tire Rack are not Low Rolling Resistance tires. Sticking with LRR limits choices.
I have heard that lining the wheel wells with sound insulation material helps too.
Anybody out there have any experience with wheel well sound insulation?

 

Yep, I got the same Toyo tires on my Three.



The cabin noise is very annoying on most streets; and almost unbearable during a long drive on the freeway.

 

We've got aging Michelin Pilots, still plenty of tread. I noticed when I put them back on (after snows) about a month back that they're getting kinda noisy, just live with it, but yeah.

 

My ECO has the Toyo tires on it and I haven't found them particularly noisy. Perhaps the roads around here are quiet, or perhaps I was so happy with my new car I didn't notice tire noise.

 

Hi John. So your Two Eco has the same Toyo tires as my Three.

My door placard says the tires should be inflated to 36 (front) and 35 (rear).

I believe your Eco says to inflate to 39 or 40? Can you reply back please, and tell me what your door placard says? Thanks.

No reason I couldn't inflate mine higher. Same tire. I wonder how raising the PSI would affect the tire noise. More? Less? I know the ride would be a bit firmer, but might also gain a couple more mpg's.

 

I bought a new Prius 3 yesterday with the 15 inch Toyo tires. So far, my wife and I think the new Prius is significantly quieter than our 2011 Prius.

 

I have the 15 Yokohama Avid Ascends with about 25,000 miles and they are very noisy and scary on wet pavement. Got a appointment at Toyota dealer in the morning to put on Michelin Premiers on. They have much better ratings for noise and wet traction. $555 out the door. I will take a hit on mileage but safety and comfort come first. Even if I lose 4 or 5 mpg I'm still way ahead of what I was getting with My Honda.

 

Mileage on tires is 25,000 and they are on a 2010 Prius. Still have a lot of tread left about 3/4 I would think. I just don't trust them>

 

From the articles I've read, the "low rolling resistance" tires do seem to have more tire noise. That's pretty much a common complaint from owners. A harder rubber compound? Different tread design? Higher air pressure required? Consumer Reports did a nice review a couple years ago, but I'm no longer a subscriber and can't access it. I think Car & Driver also did a test of various tires. It seems the traction rating and stopping distances are not as good with LRR tires.

Are LRR tires even worth having? Is getting 3 or 4 extra mpg really that important; at the cost of reduced wet pavement traction, more road noise, and less overall long-term wear? I agree with lar.smith: safety and comfort come first. I believe the car manufactures added these LRR tires as a way to tout their vehicles getting a bit higher gas mileage, pad the mpg statistics... but that doesn't mean those LRR tires are superior; or even safe.

I've always put regular Michelin tires on my Camrys in the past. MXV4 Energy. I can't say they were any quieter than the factory tires they replaced, but the Michelin's were very good in wet weather traction, braking, and longevity. They had a 60,000 mile tread wear rating. (But now I'm seeing bad reviews about some Michelin tires on Tire Rack. Are those people being truthful? Who knows. I'm at a loss as to which tires to buy.)

 

Any tires get noisy over time and mileage. Our Michelin Pilots, manufactured 5th week of 2009, and with about 45,000 kms use (sub snow tires every winter) are getting moderately noisy. But still plenty of tread, around 7/32" remaining, and hardly any cracking.

New tires tend to be quieter, regardless of brand, so you'll hear a lot of reports along the lines of: "got new tires, such-and-such brand, and they are so much quieter than the #*!@ OEM's that came with the car".

 

Sorry, I missed this. According to the manual, recommended is 39 fronts, 36 rears. I didn't bother looking at the placard, I just run them at 45. I don't know if this makes them quieter. I keep wondering if there is something wrong with your car or tires or alignment because I have no problems with road noise. Talking to passengers or taking the occasional cell call have been fine in my Prius (and were fine in my 2011 Gen 3).

Brings to mind an elusive problem I had with a new Honda motorcycle in 1999. It would shake at speed on the highway - sometimes. I took it to the dealer and of course the problem disappeared. The dealer even sent a mechanic on an identical bike along with me for a test ride. We switched bikes several times and neither of us could find any problem with my bike. It eventually turned out that my rear tire had a slow leak from a sheet metal screw embedded in the tread. I felt like a fool. When I took it to the dealer, the first thing the mechanics would do was to inflate the tires to factory spec without noting what the pressure was before they did that. And we were ALL idiots for not inspecting the tires. Modern motorcycle radials have very short and stiff sidewalls, which means that you can still go even when there is not much pressure in the tire. The older bias ply designs of tires I was used to would just go flat and the bike wouldn't move, which is why I never thought of a nearly-flat tire. I was lucky.

 

Regarding higher tire pressures, I would really recommend to test the mpg rewards. Assuming you've done a tank or two at higher pressures, near max sidewall, and are recording the mpg: drop the pressures, maybe not all the way to spec., but a decent amount lower.

And see what happens to the mpg, for the next tank or two. If there's little or no difference, and the ride is smoother consider the possible other, negative ramifications. What comes to mind for me is possible accelerated shock, spring and bearing wear. This may or may not be true, but if the mpg advantage with higher pressures is negligible...

 

Whent down to Toyota dealer this morning and had them install Michelin Premier AS tires on my 2010 Prius. Got 3 at reg price and 4th for $1. Much quieter and haven't lost any mpg as yet. Run 35lbs front and rear. very comfortable ride. Much better than the Defenders I had in my Honda CRV.


Inserted pics because some people think that the dealers never have any good deals
or are trying to scam everybody $553.11 installed out the door.

Same tires at Tire Rack would have been $554 with shipping and rebate.

 

Mendel, I'm certainly not saying everyone should raise their tire pressures or that it will have any effect on tire noise, I was simply noting that my noise observations were under those conditions.

My thinking about higher tire pressures:
(1) it reduces rolling resistance (Bob Wilson posted a nice plot of this somewhere here).
(2) this can be a larger effect than simply putting less gas into the engine while it is running: if, depending on the terrain, the reduced rolling resistance enables me to coast or run EV longer, so that the gas engine is off longer it becomes a sort of multiplicative effect
(3) higher pressures seem to reduce tire wear (I imagine by reducing the slip angles because the sidewalls are stiffer?) and also make the wear more even - with the Gen 3, people here were complaining that the OEM tires were not lasting 30K miles, whereas mine still had 5/32" left at 50K, whether from gentler driving (gentler turns and braking) or from higher pressures I don't know - I saved roughly a set of tires, and figuring tires at $500/set with mounting and balancing that's a lot of money (not even considering the environmental cost of tires) - my Insight-I tires still had wear left at 70K, and I saw postings here of people (Dan Krouse?) who got 100K.
(4) The car turns more quickly thanks to the firmer sidewalls.
(5) I don't worry about grip and traction (except in snow) because I drive nowhere near the edges of the performance envelope of the car.
(6) I didn't find the ride uncomfortably rough, nor did I have any problems with premature suspension wear.

That's where I am after about 10 years of doing this: 5 years in my Insight-I (65psi) and 5 years in my 2011 Gen 3 (45-50psi). I don't feel any impetus to test lower psi because I haven't found any downsides to these higher pressures. And now that I am no longer commuting my driving varies, so that some tanks have a lot of high-mpg driving (long trips, warm temps) and some have low-mpg short local errand runs and/or colder temps, so running a couple of tanks would not be enough to get meaningful data.

Sorry this has drifted, we should probably get back OT.

 

Great comments, guys. It's an interesting subject.

lar.smith, keep us updated please. Let us know how your new Michelin Premier AS are doing. Especially in various weather conditions. Did you inflate to factory specs, or add some extra PSI? Glad you got a good deal at your Toyota dealer. I keep seeing those "buy 3 get the 4th free", around here too.

John, thanks for the info. I'm only 2 or 3 psi over the factory inflation specs. I haven't had the courage to go to 45 just yet. I did a 34 mile drive out to Disneyland this morning. All surface streets; stop & go. The trip indicator says I got 72.7 mpg? If that's correct, that's amazing. (Suddenly, my tire noise is forgiven!)

 

Dealer inflated to 35 lbs front and back and I left them that way. I usually run same pressure front and rear.