Excessive Road Noise? Howling/humming sound

[Pandru]

Picked up a set of the OEM 18" wheels with Michelin X-Ice Xi3 winter tires and immediately noticed a reduction in the "howling sound". The sound is still there but it has been reduced to a level that would be acceptable, with the 19" Michelin Primacy All Seasons it is pretty significant. Not sure what I'm going to do come spring time, might just put all season or summer tires on the 18" wheels if that is what makes it tolerable. Will report back if the sound increases the more I drive it but so far I'm much happier than before.

 

[Ozstung]

Sounds like you guys could use a wind tunnel, that would rule out the tyres.

 

[DrKronwall]

I just got my car back from friend who owns a shop locally, so I trust what he is telling me about it. He found two things that are contributing to similar noises. The first one he can see is the tires causing resonance through the suspension, which may or may not be correctable with new tires. Most likely new rims would also be needed to fix that. The thing thats points to this most is that when you hit small sharp bumps at highway speeds the pitch of the noise goes up and entirely stops for an instant, then it resumes once the car is back on flat surface. The second one is the oem air intake is not making a proper seal at certain points of the system. The plastic pieces dont quite fit tightly together, this is the cause of the extremely loud howling that kicks in at exactly 61-62 mph. He fiddled around with how they fit together it in front of me then I drove it and the noise was reduced drastically for a little while, but came back after about 50 miles.

 

[Pandru]

I just got my car back from friend who owns a shop locally, so I trust what he is telling me about it. He found two things that are contributing to similar noises. The first one he can see is the tires causing resonance through the suspension, which may or may not be correctable with new tires. Most likely new rims would also be needed to fix that. The thing thats points to this most is that when you hit small sharp bumps at highway speeds the pitch of the noise goes up and entirely stops for an instant, then it resumes once the car is back on flat surface. The second one is the oem air intake is not making a proper seal at certain points of the system. The plastic pieces dont quite fit tightly together, this is the cause of the extremely loud howling that kicks in at exactly 61-62 mph. He fiddled around with how they fit together it in front of me then I drove it and the noise was reduced drastically for a little while, but came back after about 50 miles.

That does make sense, not sure if you read any of the posts since you last logged on or not but I did pick up a set of oem 18” wheels with winter tires mounted and the noise is much quieter and completely livable at least form the tire perspective. I drove a few other stingers and they made the noise too but mine seemed significantly louder even with the same tires (19”), I wonder if there was something specific with our tires...the air intake thing makes sense too. I’ll have to take a look at mine

 

[DrKronwall]

Ya, let me know if you hear anything back from Michelin. If its the rims/tires combo straight from the factory we shouldn't have to pay for new rims/tires.

 

[Pandru]

Ya, let me know if you hear anything back from Michelin. If its the rims/tires combo straight from the factory we shouldn't have to pay for new rims/tires.

Michelin got back to me and this was their response "Unfortunately, none of the tires we make in your size have the Acoustic technology at this time." They didn't bother to elaborate on whether or not they would develop the tires in compatible sizes for our cars.

 

[DrKronwall]

Im not surprised by that response at all. I figured they didn't have one already. I was finally able to talk to the escalated consumer affairs group today. They suggested taking it to a different dealership, and telling them what my friend said about it. I doubt thats going to solve anything, but I'll at least try it. If I was going to buy a second set of rims I would want my normal tires on those and snow tires on my current rims. Then there's a chance the noise would happen with the snow tires though. I just have to hope they will eventually replace something that might fix it if I keep dropping it off. Maybe it will annoy them into finally trying to fix something.

 

[Pandru]

Im not surprised by that response at all. I figured they didn't have one already. I was finally able to talk to the escalated consumer affairs group today. They suggested taking it to a different dealership, and telling them what my friend said about it. I doubt thats going to solve anything, but I'll at least try it. If I was going to buy a second set of rims I would want my normal tires on those and snow tires on my current rims. Then there's a chance the noise would happen with the snow tires though. I just have to hope they will eventually replace something that might fix it if I keep dropping it off. Maybe it will annoy them into finally trying to fix something.

Yep, keep at it and let me know what they say

 

[StingsLikeABee]

I called Kia Premium Customer Service and logged the issue with them - they also suggested visiting a different dealer and candidly I didn't think they were that helpful.

Pandru - It's encouraging to see that the 18" wheels with different tires significantly reduced the road noise - do we think it is more the tires that are causing the issue, the OEM wheels, or a combination of both? Is there anything we could do with the suspension to reduce the tire resonance as DrKronwall mentioned? I'm willing to bite the bullet and pick me up new sets of rims but I would rather keep the 19" wheels if a simple tire swap mostly remedies the issue. Also, where did you pick up your wheels and tires if you don't mind me asking?

To document addtional observations:
- the noise shows up over tiny bumps and irregularities, even if I am driving <5 mph so I don't think the wind noise is caused by a skirt being loose, etc.
- the noise is significantly louder when the tire pressures are low (~30), or when the weather is colder.
- the noise is more pronounced in the rain and going up/down hill as well as turning at points
- the noise is more pronounced when braking.
- I noticed that the louder the noise is, the more my steering wheel vibrates/shakes.
- When I lean my head forward towards the dash or forward-sideways to the center of the dash, the noise nearly dissapates. It seems like I really hear the noise when I am sitting in an upright/normal driving position, and it comes from the pedal area.

 

[Pandru]

I called Kia Premium Customer Service and logged the issue with them - they also suggested visiting a different dealer and candidly I didn't think they were that helpful.

Pandru - It's encouraging to see that the 18" wheels with different tires significantly reduced the road noise - do we think it is more the tires that are causing the issue, the OEM wheels, or a combination of both? Is there anything we could do with the suspension to reduce the tire resonance as DrKronwall mentioned? I'm willing to bite the bullet and pick me up new sets of rims but I would rather keep the 19" wheels if a simple tire swap mostly remedies the issue. Also, where did you pick up your wheels and tires if you don't mind me asking?

To document addtional observations:
- the noise shows up over tiny bumps and irregularities, even if I am driving <5 mph so I don't think the wind noise is caused by a skirt being loose, etc.
- the noise is significantly louder when the tire pressures are low (~30), or when the weather is colder.
- the noise is more pronounced in the rain and going up/down hill as well as turning at points
- the noise is more pronounced when braking.
- I noticed that the louder the noise is, the more my steering wheel vibrates/shakes.
- When I lean my head forward towards the dash or forward-sideways to the center of the dash, the noise nearly dissapates. It seems like I really hear the noise when I am sitting in an upright/normal driving position, and it comes from the pedal area.

I do believe it starts with the tires, it can be costly going out and buying different tires hoping that will lessen the noise unless there is an acoustic tire option. I will say that going one inch smaller in the 18" tires lessened the noise as I thought it would, it's still there but so much better than before. I will probably ultimately go with a more summer oriented tire on my 19" wheels since I have the winter set up. I purchased the wheels and tires from a guy locally who totaled his Stinger and had no use for them anymore.

I've seen the videos you have posted on the forum and on the Facebook group and can say with certainty we're experiencing the same noise and as you described in your last message, those are spot on observations although I don't recall have any vibration through the steering wheel just the noise is all.

 

[StingsLikeABee]

I do believe it starts with the tires, it can be costly going out and buying different tires hoping that will lessen the noise unless there is an acoustic tire option. I will say that going one inch smaller in the 18" tires lessened the noise as I thought it would, it's still there but so much better than before. I will probably ultimately go with a more summer oriented tire on my 19" wheels since I have the winter set up. I purchased the wheels and tires from a guy locally who totaled his Stinger and had no use for them anymore.

I've seen the videos you have posted on the forum and on the Facebook group and can say with certainty we're experiencing the same noise and as you described in your last message, those are spot on observations although I don't recall have any vibration through the steering wheel just the noise is all.

That is extremely encouraging to hear. I was worried for the longest time that it was suspension related but I knew it was the wheel/tire area after I had the struts replaced via warranty. I'll do some researching for quieter tires for the 19" wheels and see if that brings it down towards an acceptable level. It's weird that the noise is virtually gone on some road surfaces but is unacceptably loud on others - huge bummer that Michilen didn't include the acoustic tire option for the Stinger, especially considering it's a heavy fastback.

I'll be sure to keep in touch

 

[TimT]

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[TimT]

The rule with tire noise is really simple: the less performance orientated the tires are, the less noise they will generate because it is all about the tire compound. The worse for tire noise is driving with all-seasons during a warm period because the tires get very soft with warmer degrees.
The wheel model themselves do not play a part in it because the noise is generated when the tire is in contact with the road. What does play a part (and in my experience also) in terms of noise is the size of the wheel (18 will be quieter than 19 because of more sidewall, 20 will be noisier than 18 & 19 due to less side wall), but also the quality of the asphalt (smooth vs bumpy) you are driving on, the speed, tire pressure and many other things I can't remember early in the morning.
I found that the best for tire noise was Continental PremiumContact 6's that my car originally came with, I had a set of Yokohamas which were absolutely garbage and now my last set of summers were Pirelli PZero's which were also more-or-less good. I haven't driven the PS4 normal or S version.
But at the end of the day my personal advice is the following: accept the fact that the car has more road noise than the premium competition it is aspiring to compete with, at the end of the day it is Kia's first true attempt of a premium saloon car and they clearly had to cut costs from somewhere to keep the price down compared to the competition. You will enjoy the car a lot more once you let go of wanting the same high quality interior that premium brands offer.

 

[DrKronwall]

The rule with tire noise is really simple: the less performance orientated the tires are, the less noise they will generate because it is all about the tire compound. The worse for tire noise is driving with all-seasons during a warm period because the tires get very soft with warmer degrees.
The wheel model themselves do not play a part in it because the noise is generated when the tire is in contact with the road. What does play a part (and in my experience also) in terms of noise is the size of the wheel (18 will be quieter than 19 because of more sidewall, 20 will be noisier than 18 & 19 due to less side wall), but also the quality of the asphalt (smooth vs bumpy) you are driving on, the speed, tire pressure and many other things I can't remember early in the morning.
I found that the best for tire noise was Continental PremiumContact 6's that my car originally came with, I had a set of Yokohamas which were absolutely garbage and now my last set of summers were Pirelli PZero's which were also more-or-less good. I haven't driven the PS4 normal or S version.
But at the end of the day my personal advice is the following: accept the fact that the car has more road noise than the premium competition it is aspiring to compete with, at the end of the day it is Kia's first true attempt of a premium saloon car and they clearly had to cut costs from somewhere to keep the price down compared to the competition. You will enjoy the car a lot more once you let go of wanting the same high quality interior that premium brands offer.

It's much louder than normal tire noise. Just to give you an idea, I've owned a couple different Pontiac grand prix's (gxp and gtp) both had 19" rims on them. One had summer tires, the other had the exact tires my Stinger has on it just not as wide. A Nissan maxima with 19" rims, had Yokohama's, pirelli's, Michelin's, and continental's at various points in time, all of those were all seasons. The sound the stinger is making is easily 4 to 5 times louder than any tire noise any of those cars had. Thats saying something because that gxp was basically a tin can with a V8 that Pontiac spit out right before folding. If its the same issue those Volvo's were having it has nothing to do a wheel or tire individually, it has to do with the size and shape of the space inside the tire when mounted on the wheel causing resonance. Its very hard to say if simply getting different tires would help at all, and I'm personally not dropping $1k on new tires to test out a theory especially when its on a car with a $55k sticker price. That should be on kia to test out, and so far they haven't been willing to.

I would just accept it and move on if it didn't give me a headache on my 45 minute commute to work. Headache in the morning on the way in, headache on the way home in the afternoon.

 

[Pandru]

The rule with tire noise is really simple: the less performance orientated the tires are, the less noise they will generate because it is all about the tire compound. The worse for tire noise is driving with all-seasons during a warm period because the tires get very soft with warmer degrees.
The wheel model themselves do not play a part in it because the noise is generated when the tire is in contact with the road. What does play a part (and in my experience also) in terms of noise is the size of the wheel (18 will be quieter than 19 because of more sidewall, 20 will be noisier than 18 & 19 due to less side wall), but also the quality of the asphalt (smooth vs bumpy) you are driving on, the speed, tire pressure and many other things I can't remember early in the morning.
I found that the best for tire noise was Continental PremiumContact 6's that my car originally came with, I had a set of Yokohamas which were absolutely garbage and now my last set of summers were Pirelli PZero's which were also more-or-less good. I haven't driven the PS4 normal or S version.
But at the end of the day my personal advice is the following: accept the fact that the car has more road noise than the premium competition it is aspiring to compete with, at the end of the day it is Kia's first true attempt of a premium saloon car and they clearly had to cut costs from somewhere to keep the price down compared to the competition. You will enjoy the car a lot more once you let go of wanting the same high quality interior that premium brands offer.

Thanks for the insight, I'll say one thing though. I had my car at a second dealer and we compared it with 2 other Stingers with the same tires. The service manager said on a scale of 1-10 (10 being loudest) they'd put my car at a 10 and the other cars at a 4 or maybe 5 in regards to the howling noise from the tires. I'm just trying to figure out why that may be, especially since it started around 200 miles. Maybe DrKronwall and I have something wrong with our specific set of tires? Like he said, it's tough to stomach throwing down $800-1000 for new tires to see if it cures the problem or not. I think we can accept a little of the noise as it's clearly going to always be there but in our case our cars ROAR when going down the road. I'm torn on what to do come spring, put my 19" wheels on back on (only to hear this noise again), swap different tires on those or get a second set of 18" wheels (lighter wheels too) and put some sticky summer tires or different all seasons on those...

 

[DrKronwall]

I'm not sure if they would fit or not, but since the g70 sports don't make the same noise they could easily swap a set of those 19" wheels and tires onto our cars at the dealership and see if the noise goes away. I'm also considering trying to use tire slime inside the tires to see if it changes the noise at all, but I would prefer to not do that since that stuff is nasty and can easily unbalance a wheel.

 

[Pandru]

I'm not sure if they would fit or not, but since the g70 sports don't make the same noise they could easily swap a set of those 19" wheels and tires onto our cars at the dealership and see if the noise goes away. I'm also considering trying to use tire slime inside the tires to see if it changes the noise at all, but I would prefer to not do that since that stuff is nasty and can easily unbalance a wheel.

18" wheels will fit, they came with 18x8 wheels with 225/45/18 tires on all 4 corners. The guy I bought my winter OEM winter wheels/tires from had 18" konig wheels for summer use that weighed something like 18 pounds a piece, the stock wheels I want to say are like 25 pounds a piece. The downside is it doesn't look as nice as the 19" and it's a skinnier tire but less noise. The test with the G70 wheels/tires would be a good one, see if a dealer will do that for you as a test

 

[Ozstung]

Just to throw my 2c in (sorry if im repeating myself) i had the Contental cont contact 5's on for 27k and they were quiet, yes they wore quickly. Now i have the Michelin Ps4 and the noise difference ive noticed immediately is staggering, far noisier, they've been on for 4k kms.

 

[DTD]

18" wheels will fit, they came with 18x8 wheels with 225/45/18 tires on all 4 corners. The guy I bought my winter OEM winter wheels/tires from had 18" konig wheels for summer use that weighed something like 18 pounds a piece, the stock wheels I want to say are like 25 pounds a piece. The downside is it doesn't look as nice as the 19" and it's a skinnier tire but less noise. The test with the G70 wheels/tires would be a good one, see if a dealer will do that for you as a test

I am not sure that would be that good of a test. The Stinger is a hatchback which will always be noisier then the G70 as they are not hatchbacks the wheel wells of the G70 are in the trunk and the wheel wells in the Stinger are in the driving compartment so all the tire noise is right there with you in the car. I think the Stinger looks better than the G70 but the G70 to me is better all the way around, quieter, no big blind spots and a bit faster. Only problem for me is apples to apples it is about 6K more.

 

[StingsLikeABee]

Are there any other tire manufacturers that offers Stinger-compatible tires with something similar to Michelin's acoustic technology? I highly doubt it but one can hope.