I have a 2003 MINI Cooper S. At least it used to be mine until my wife drove it for the first time and I never got it back! Anyway, WE have 30,000 miles on it and the wheels have become noisy.

I use run-flats for three seasons but M&S tires in the winter. The run-flats are on 17 inch alloy wheels and will need replacing this spring after about 24,000 miles on them. Last fall, I attributed the wheel noisiness to the worn tread condition on the tires.

The winter tires, however, are also noisy. They are like brand new; less than 6000 miles on them. They are 15 inch Blizzaks on steel wheels. I store them in the garage in the horizontal position in the off-season. I know that winter tires have aggressive treads and are usually noisy, but we do not remember their being this noisy in previous winters. We also cannot detect a particular wheel making the noise.

Has anyone else experienced an increase in noise from your wheels? Has anyone had problems with wheel bearings? Is there something else I should be considering?

 

Have you had an alignment recently? A poor alignment can cause irregular tread wear and that can cause noise. All runflats are noisy. Did you take out the back seat? Obviously that increases road noise as does the vary road you drive on.

On a side note: 1 post in 4 years? Heh heh, nothing worth posting about eh?

 

Thanks for the input. Didn't notice anything unusual on the summer tires when I switched to the winter tires, but I'll check out both more carefully. The back seat and rear deck are in the car.

As for the number of inputs, I guess I am a quiet guy! Maybe this will break the ice.

 

The problem turned out to be a bad driver's side rear wheel bearing. P&W Motors replaced it and the noise is gone.

 

Aww man...

I was just going to say, "Check your wheel bearings".

You beat me to it. Glad all is well

 

I just made an appointment at P&W for what might be the exact same thing. I have wob-wob noise that increases with speed, independent of engine speed. I dind't notice it as much when I had run flats, since the run flats were a bit louder; after i replaced them with all season regular tires, I really noticed it. It's a slight grinding sound that wob-wobs, seems to be coming from the rear passenger side but I'm not sure; I'll find out if I'm right next wednesday.

 

I had a problem that started out as an occasional thunk from the rear end (AT ABOUT 10K MILES), and got worse. I had it to FOUR different dealerships, the last of which replaced the entire rear suspension before throwing up their hands. Clunk still there. A few months ago, I started getting tire noise from that corner. UH-oh. I jack up the car, and when I grab the rear wheel at 3 o'clock and 9 o'clock, I can wiggle the wheel and hub fore and aft. So guess what? FOUR dealerships, and not one could diagnose a bad wheel bearing.

Ugh.