I noticed a new noise the other day. It is kind of like a whining noise that increases w/ car speed and not engine speed.

I checked all the wheels but couldn't find any rubbing. I put clips in all of the plastic pieces near the front bumper. Applying the brakes doesn't seem to make it better or worse.

It seems to be louder from inside the car (when I roll my window down I can't hear it from the outside). I can just about feel a slight vibration on the floorboard but it is very slight.

I bought a 3 yr allignment last year so I'm going to get an allignment and I'll have them rotate the tires to see if that does anything but I doubt it.

I'm just all out of ideas and guessing at this point. Could it be a wheel bearing?

Anyone else experience anything simialr?

 

Tires or wheel bearing most likely.

 

I read some wheel bearing threads and got a little concerned so I took it in for evaluation.

They said it was just the tires. I have the Yokohoma Avid tires. After about 10-15K miles they started making much louder road noise than before. Maybe it was getting louder for a while and I just noticed it.

They did say that the tow was slightly out of allignment too but not enough to cause that noise (I had an alignment done about 8 months ago).

Anyway, all of this caused me to read up on the warrantee for my tires. There are pretty rediculous maintenance requirements in there (if they actually held you to the letter of the warrantee). However, I bought the tires there so rotation is free for the life of the tires and I'm going to get a multi year allignement so I can have the tires rotated and the car alligned for free at every oil change. That should meet their maintenance requirements.