Is it just me or are all stock A33s pretty noisy on the road? I would expect a car of this class to be quiet. Are the stock tires the major cause? How would you rate the noise level on the Potenzas? What would be a good replacement?

Soundeadening or different tires or both. Yokohamas are pretty quiet. So are Michelin Hydro Edge or Aqua Edge... something like that.

try checking your tire pressure first.

Tire pressure is ok. It's not just my I30t, but also my 01 Max, both using the same Bridgestone Potenzas, 225/50/17. So tires do make a huge difference? If I can get a definite answer, then I am definitely going to change to a different set. How are the Toyo Proxes' in noise level?

Thanks for the responses.

Tires definately make a huge difference. I had these Michelin Weather Wise tires and GOOD DAMN THEY SUCKED!!! The road noise was horrible, and the had no tranction and they wore down really easily. Lucky previous owner put them on right before I bought the car so I had no problem replacing them with a QUALITY tire. As my general rule, anything below $100 per tire is going to be complete crap no matter what brand it is. Those sh!tty weather wise tire were like $80. The Hydro Edges that I got as replacements were like $120 and the extra money was well worth it.

Go to www.tirerack.com there, you can browse tires, read ratings and reviews.

I dunno about you, but I spend less than $50 a tire.
but that's also because I have 15s
I personally also happen to like Kumho and have had excellent luck with them so far. about 5 sets I've used so far on different vehicles.

Thanks for pointing me to the right direction. The reviews on the Bridgestone Potenza RE92 are pretty bad, with an average rating of 5.49, and when I narrow it down to I30 owners, there were a lot of road noise complaints, so it's safe to say it's the major cause here. I don't understand why Nissan/Infiniti would use such crappy tires to begin with.

wow less than $50 per tire... If you look at the reviews for tires under $50 on tirerack they are pretty bad.

No problem.

they are?
$42 ea : http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires....place=0#Survey
$46 ea:
http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires....place=2#Survey
Good ratings to me.

we're running the second type on 2 of my cars now.

hmm I guess I good deal is to be found if you look. I never looked at kumhos.

I don't think these tires would my personal performance needs, but if you don't require high performance and just need the bare essentials of tire...

actually depending on the Kumho, they make some very nice performance tires.
They are one the premier auto-x tire makers (it's between them and hoosier)

WTF potenzas are not bad tires... i looked on tirerack and potenzas for that size run about $150 apeice... thats not cheap.. $200 bucks for the run flats... kumho is about $100

Didn't check the other Potenzas, but the RE92's scored pretty bad, they sort the reviews by highest ratings first, so the entire first page are good reviews, but the average rating is poor.

Check out Fuzions....they are basically the same tire as Potenzas but at half the price.

If you really want it to be quiet, put some sound deadener in the wheel wells. Will probably be the biggest improvement in road noise. That and possibly the doors upper window seals. Go to the audio forum and check out the sound deadening stickies.

Thanks, will do.

I've had my set of Kumho ASX 225/40/18 tires for close to 30K miles now. Think I have bout 5/32" tread left. when I first put them on, road noise was not bad at all, but I think it has gradually gotten a lil bit worse. Cant complain though, for a low profile 18" tire, only spent $104 a piece. I'd give them a 7-7.5.

Check into Yokohama. If u want a cheap slightly performance tire, the A550V's or the even cheaper set(I think they'er called AVID T4's) have done my girlfriend quite well. she has had a set of both in the size of 205/45/17 I think.

Good luck

Having had my seats out and carpet up I'm quite impressed with the amount of sound dampening infiniti put into the touring model(I haven't seen other models to know). My doors are pretty solid as far as how they shut and how heavy they are. I do get trunk rattle from my 12 which is a good reason to sound deaden, but I don't really know if you can kill road noise. I take that back if you grab some truck bedliner material and spray about 3-4 coats in the wheels wells that can help dampen sound. If you do that though be patient with the spray and treat it almost like paint. Let it completely dry before spraying another coat.

Another trick I picked up on was going to junk yards and finding luxury cars. Then you pull the dampening in those from under the carpets, under the seats and in the trunk. They'll let you have it cheap if not for free. Then you go and put the dampener under your carpet, under the back seat, and under the trunk matt. You can also put some behind the trunkliner especially if you have a lot of bare areas.

You can put sound dampening under the carpet, in the doors etc. Also you can get some shops to spray the underside of your car/wheel wells with a sound dampening material that is much like(if not the same) as bedliner material. Tires make a HUGE difference also.

Also note that all of this will add weight to the car, will it be enough to notice a huge difference in acceleration/gas mileage? Probably not.

When you guys say wheel wells, is it the dark (plastic/ruber?) peices that surrounds the above of each wheels?

A complete interior overhaul would be out of the question for me since I am partially handicapped, and as falconey pointed out, there's a good amount of dampening put into it already. Just out of curiosity, do Maximas and non-Touring i30s get the same treatments?

I'm almost positive maximas's don't, but I do not know about the non-touring I30's.
As for your question about the wheel wells you are right on. Basically it's best to remove the wheel/tire and mask off all brake/suspension parts. Then spray the plastic you're referring to.

Cool thanks, that sounds pretty easy to do, even with my handicapped condition.

If it is not already there, add some carpet and padding to the inside of the trunk lid. My I35 has it, and it is considerably quieter in the rear than my dad's 00' Maxima.

I have a i30t 98 edition and it does the same thing especially when hitting bumps. I taught of my shocks and ball joints..........but damn these part are expensive around here lol.

15" Toyo Proxes' are noisy as hell and they have magnets in them that magically attract rocks into the tread even after 20K