Excessive Road Noise From Rear Wheels

[Gtown]

I just bought a used ES300 2 weeks ago and have had it in the shop twice.

Once to get wheel balance done on all tires to remove a shaking that was present. That did fix the shaking in the steeering wheel and front end (mostly) but there is still a noise in the back.

Second time to replace the pads and rotors in the front brakes and fix a noise when driven between 100 and 115 KMH. At that speed there is an oscillating noise that sounds a like a train. It gets worse after about 15 minutes of driving as well. It is loud enough to be truly annoying, even making it difficult for those in the back to hear conversation.

Dealership is saying it is just noisy tires. They are Kumho tires so I'm doubting this. I could even agree if it was a consistent ambient noise, however; there is this patterned oscillation (Train noise) that makes me think there is something else wrong.

Tires have plenty of tread and pressure is correct, wheels are balanced (Perhaps their wheel balancing machine is off?), and they say it is not the bearings.

Should I replace them with the winter tires I have and see if that makes a difference?

I'd like any input you may have.

[cuz.]

I just bought a used ES300 2 weeks ago and have had it in the shop twice.

Once to get wheel balance done on all tires to remove a shaking that was present. That did fix the shaking in the steeering wheel and front end (mostly) but there is still a noise in the back.

Second time to replace the pads and rotors in the front brakes and fix a noise when driven between 100 and 115 KMH. At that speed there is an oscillating noise that sounds a like a train. It gets worse after about 15 minutes of driving as well. It is loud enough to be truly annoying, even making it difficult for those in the back to hear conversation.

Dealership is saying it is just noisy tires. They are Kumho tires so I'm doubting this. I could even agree if it was a consistent ambient noise, however; there is this patterned oscillation (Train noise) that makes me think there is something else wrong.

Tires have plenty of tread and pressure is correct, wheels are balanced (Perhaps their wheel balancing machine is off?), and they say it is not the bearings.

Should I replace them with the winter tires I have and see if that makes a difference?

I'd like any input you may have.

check to make sure lug nuts are all tight they may not be torqued to the right measurement, could be flat spot on the tires from using e-brake while driving.

something might be heating up. If it continues to get worse while driving, it may be ball-joints. Do you feel the car shaking with the noise or do you just hear the noise?

if you can't have a conversation you probably shouldn't be driving your car in excess.

[Graham]

Different tires have different road noise. Open sidewall is good for winter, but the escaping air makes a lot of noise. Summer tires are solid outter sidewall, so they are perfectly silent- All Seasons are a compromise between these two basic technologies.

On tire rack, the Kumho tires are the cheapest ones listed for the ES300 at $82 each, nothing special dude.

I feel for your situation, but I recommend that you get Michellin's or Yokohama's, part of the expense of a tire is making sure the rubber is uniform all around the wheel, as well as the quality of the rubber compound and tread pattern. (not all tires are the same, and the engineers at Michellin have access to race car tech). The winter tires will be loud too.

What size weights are there on the tire? If you have a large weight on one of the wheels, but haven't hit anything to damage the Mag, then you're tire is cheap and has rubber QA problem.

I drive an SC400 and QA of tires makes a huge difference. Man they get us, mine are $200 each, not $100 each.

Good luck!

[vetmx1]

I have a 2000 Es300 with 140K miles. I had a hum in the back of the car.

The tires are fairly new, and I doubted there was a tire tread separation (which can make noise).

I rotated tires front to back and the noise was still out back.

I had my wife drive so i could listen from the back seat.

I was certain the noise was from one side of the car, so I replaced the rear wheel bearing on that side.

Darn, didn't fix it, so I replaced the other side wheel bearing.

DONE. back to being quiet again.

The job was a bit of a pain, but not that difficult.

for the first one, I used an arbor press at work to press the spindle out of the bearing.

the second time I got a gear puller from sears which worked better.

The thing that was !Removed! me up was the gear-like thing that is used for the ABS.

put a rag on it and pull and twist with a big set of pliers. it coes out, then you can get the spindle nut off.