I have a a tire/wheel that is making an odd and annoying noise. It sounds a bit like a subtle "whomp whomp" sound, and starts at around 60mph. I also notice a slight vibration in the steering wheel at that speed. Other than that, handling does not appear to be affected.

I started noticing it shortly after we came back from AMVIV (2600 mile roundtrip). At that time, the sound was coming from the right rear. I have recently rotated the tires front to back, and now the noise is up front at what I think is the right side (along with the aforementioned vibration).

Tires are Dunlop SP9000 performance runflats, and only have about 16K miles on them. Treadwear appears to be fairly even, although I don't really know what to look for.

 

get it rebalanced. sounds like a weight came off. racers tape them on for this reason

 

Stopped by the tire shop today to have them put the wheel on the balancer. Right away, I noticed that the tire had excessive wear on the inner shoulder, and also showed cupping. That would explain my noisy symptons. I didn't notice this tire wear when I rotated the tires a couple of weeks ago, but then it was getting dark and I was hurrying.

I checked the other 3, and they showed normal, even wear. It must have worn funny like that in the right rear for the last 3K miles.

I think I had better have the alignment checked. Funny thing though, the car tracks perfectly straight. Is it possible for one of the rear control arms to have gotten bumped out of alignment but not the rest of the car?

The only other advise the shop gave me was that perhaps the tire was partially separating... At least they didn't charge me anything to check things out.

 

The OEM runflats aren't known for quality. If your alignment is good, then it was just a bad tire.