50K miles on my GOODYEARS.....noise??

[edwx]

I've got 50K miles on my GOODYEAR WRANGLER SR-As. Not a fancy tire, just basic all season. Beginning to hear a drone at speeds above 40mph or so. No change in sound when I weave back and forth. I'm sure it's not the front hubs...replaced them both last winter with SKF hubs/Timken bearings. This just began in the past couple of months, and I'm thinking it's the tires. Thoughts? Suggestions?

 

[Flag Gibby]

Sounds like it definitely could be tire noise since you start to hear it around 40 mph. Is your tread depth at or around 4/32?

 

[edwx]

Thanks. That's the part that bothers me. The tread still looks decent. Just measured it in several different spots, and the average is 6-7/32.

 

[Flag Gibby]

Well, as the tires age they become less flexible too so a tire over 3 years of age could be more noisy due to less flexibility in the rubber, but at this point it wouldn't hurt to have the tires balanced and rotated to see if the noise moves from the front to the rear and maybe gets better.

 

[edwx]

I rotated them a month ago to see if it would help. They are wearing almost perfectly. I think I might just live with the hummmmmmm for a while. Better than dropping $600