s1mba

So I've been noticing some noises after I put on my new wheels about 2 weeks ago.. but have only drove the car about 80 miles since. I have an 08 with ~13k miles.

The first noise I heard is a sort of pulsating humming/whirring noise that seems to be coming from the rear. I noticed it when I got onto the highway after getting the new wheels mounted. At first I thought it was just my exhaust drone but it's a different pitch and louder. I still heard it while accelerating so ruled out the exhaust drone. I put my car into neutral while I was driving through me neighborhood at ~20mph and can still hear it. No vibrations at all. I'm thinking tires.

The other noise that is a ticking sound coming from the rear. I'm pretty sure this is indicative of the axle nut TSB. I'm planning on re-torquing the rear axle nuts to ~300 lb/ft. The thing I'm worried about is since I'm getting the ticking sound, does that mean the humming sound is due to bad wheel bearings? What's weird is I started noticing the noises after I put on the new wheels

UPDATE: re-tightened axle nuts. Both sounds still there. I'm 90% sure the rotational humming is from the tires but can't figure out the tick tick tick which comes on only when driving. I'm thinking it might be from the tire balancing weights.

Chris_Lum

sounds like it could be bad wheel bearings and/or feathered tires. You probably wouldn't hear feathered tires at such a slow speed as 20mph though, unless they are really really bad….but i'll let more experienced people chime in since i'm not certain.

s1mba

Yeah the tires didn't seem too bad when I was getting them mounted. I did drive around without an alignment for a while when I first got my coils installed over a year ago. Not sure if that would affect the tires. Turned out that the rear driver side camber was like -1.6 and passenger was -2.2 before I got them both to -2.2. My front driver side was -0.8 and passenger was -1.5 before getting them both to -1.1. The tires are about 5 years old now with only ~13k miles.

s1mba

I have a torque wrench that goes up to 250lb/ft. I was thinking of re-torquing it to see if that affects anything. I'm not sure if it has to be over 300lb/ft though?

Chris_Lum

you can follow the "new" Billman procedure for retightening the axle nut. basically need to tighten to the factory setting then 60 degrees further. https://www.s2ki.com/home/2012/09/21...ow-to-and-why/

s1mba

Ah yeah, had that page bookmarked. Well I'm going to see if I can get it 60 degrees tomorrow with my 1/2 inch torque wrench. Hopefully it's not the bearing.. would be a surprise with such low miles.

Chris_Lum

good luck (no sarcasm). I tried getting it to 60 with my 1/2" drive breaker bar and i think i only got to 30-40 before the nut stopped moving and i felt like the breaker bar was going to fail. I'm going to buy a 3/4" breaker bar and socket for the next go around.

s1mba

Thanks for the tip. If I can't get it I'm prob going to pick this up: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...productDetails. One of the reviewers used it to re-torque the axle nuts on their s2k as well

silverstone05

i did mine and it still clicks, cant figure out what is wrong with it!

s1mba

^ Did you torque it to 60 degrees from the original point?

Well I went to tighten it today, and found out I don't have a 36mm socket lol going to grab one tomorrow when the stores open. I already know the cause of the clicking sound but wanted to get to the bottom of the rotational humming noise. So I jacked the rear up to see if there was any play. I shook the wheel with my hands at 12 and 6 o clock and it had no play. Spun it with my hands and didn't hear anything out of the ordinary.. just the sound of the wheel spinning. Turned the car on and put it into gear and still nothing.

I thought I'd post a vid anyways:


Took some pictures of the tires as well to give you guys an idea:

Passenger side


Driver side



Took another quick drive around the block with my brother. I wanted to show him the rotational noise I think is coming from the tires. It was hard to point out the noise first but after driving around the block for a bit it was more prevalent. Maybe as the tires warmed up the nosie became louder? I'm pretty sure it's the tires and he said the same. He said his R-compounds make similar noises. I still have stock RE050. We didn't here much of the clicking noise this time which I thought was weird

Just wanted to post my thoughts. Any other ideas? My next step is to re-torque axle nuts tomorrow and then alignment next week.