I already made a post like this in the tire/wheel forum, but it's pretty much a dead forum there. Sorry for the double post. Anyway..


I just bought 4 new Continental ContiExtremeContact tires for my 99 Maxima (with about 79k miles). The tires have about 10 miles on them. These tires were balanced and both the front and rear wheels were aligned. There is only one problem, the interior of my car is still very loud. I was told that it could be my rear wheel bearings. I'm quite the newbie when it comes to this car stuff, but I've looked all over this forum for an answer and I haven't seen it. Does anybody know what the problem could be, or does every Maxima have a fairly loud interior...

 

Was the car as loud with the old tires?

The maxima is a nice car but it's definitely not going to be as quiet as a Lexus or Mercedes.

What kind of noise are you hearing?

 

Yes, the old tires made the same noise. I actually thought buying new tires would get rid of the noise, but it didn't.

The noise is this low tone sound, that gradually gets louder as the car moves faster. As the car slows down, the sound also goes down in volume...


Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

are you sure its not just road noise, sound dampening could help if it is

 

That deffinitly sounds like you have a wheel bearing going bad. The bearings don't usually go bad all at once. Is the sound more prominant from the front, rear, left front, right rear, etc. Can you tell if the sound is behind you or in front. Usually when the wheel bearings start to go bad it sounds like a humming noise. The resonation will increase as the speed at which the wheel rotates increases. If it's the coming from the rear you might want to consider having a profession make the repair for you. The rear wheel bearing needs to be pressed in. I just had the rears fixed on my car & the parts ran about $150.00 ea. from the stealership...

 

Might want to have someone check the rear brakes too before doing the bearing replacement.

Could be a bad brake caliper not letting one of the pads free of the rotor. You can tell from the wear on the rotor which would look wavy and uneven if this was happening.