I have been experiencing a loud noise resonating through my '04 RX8 for quite some time now. I'll give you all a little bit of history about my little problem:

It all started back about six months ago when the car started making a constat "woop woop woop woop" noise in time with rotation of the wheels from some point in the car. We couldn't put our finger on where it was coming from, but it was definately at a frequency that was annoying. We took it back to Mazda and they did the obligatory wheel balance/alignment and swapped the wheels around thing they've done for a lot of people (I presume).

So - this fixed the problem ... or a week

The "woop woop woop" noise has now come back in full force, now twice as loud as before (thus, twice as annoying) which has led us to prefer driving our other cars over the RX8.

I've seen a solitary thread about this in the states ... click here to read through the noisy tyre thread

Has anyone else experienced this?

Please reply asap.

Thanks,
Cromax

 

Welcome to the forum Cromax

How many k's have you done?

Any vibration in the car from anywhere? (just want to isolate that it's not an engine mount issue, of which there have been a few, or wheel bearings -- of which I've heard nothing -- but this doesn't sound like either)

The 040's are a noisy tyre, especially once they have around 25,000k on them. That, plus Mazdas always seem to transmit quite a bit of road noise.

Probably the first thing is to ride in another 8, as a point of comparison. I'm sure one of the Melb lads or lassies would offer, if your dealer can't.

The second might be to have the dealer swap out your wheels/tyres with another, and see if there's a difference...but there is a strong consensus that the OEM tyre is noisy

 

Yeah but I've never noticed the kind of noise Cromax is describing (welcome BTW ).

Sounds to me like you need to get to the bottom of it before any damage or increased wear is caused.

I assume your service dept accepts it isn't normal right? If so, get them back onto it until they figure it out for you.

Personally, although the OEM tyres aren't exactly quiet, I don't find them all that intrusive and certainly wouldn't think the tyres on their own (undamaged and fitted correctly) would have given you cause for alarm.

 

Welcome to the wonderful sucky world of owning/listening to RE040s. This is what they can do...make noise..change..get better...get worse....you are experiencing it.

My admitedly biased advice...ditch the tires and get something decent...not that the RE040 don't handle failrly well, it's just they generally have some poor characteristics, once of them being what you experience...because I have had the same experiences as well.

 

Flat spotted the tyre???

I have it in my bicycle - flat spotted it when I braked very hard. And it gives a rotational noise of woop... woop ... woop.

The question being: How can you flat spot a tyre in a car equipped with ABS?

 

Sideways! :D

 

Yep! :p :D

 

Ahem! At the risk of receiving one of Revolver's parabellum rounds (in a very small voice) - I have very quiet tyres now. I recently got a couple of CD's of Bach keyboard concertos, and I can hear every nuance (I have to play them in the car, my wife doesn't like classical music much).

 

BANG!

<blows smoke away from end of barrel>

Just kidding. :D :D

Look, I know there are quieter tyres out there. I just wanted to say that I don't find the RE40s so loud as to be intrusive or something I'd worry about. Having said that, I appreciate and respect that others have different views on the issue.

BTW labrat, have you seen your tyres namesake yet (the Maybach Excelero). What a BEAST! :D

 

Imagine Fulda spending $8million just to demonstrate that their Excelero tyres can stand up to 350km/h, and holding up a 2.7 tonne car at that speed too!

 

No vibration is coming from anywhere but the tyres. There are no flat spots (almost impossible inless you e-brake the car ... and even then, the handbrake in the RX8 is too weak to do that).

The car's done 35000km and has lived on mostly straight and wide roads, the tyres have more than 50% tread left on them (the car does mostly long trips, and doesn't get pushed hard around corners ... much).

 

You have probably already done this but check that one of your wheels is not out of balance or buckled. I recently noticed a slight vibration and a similar woop woop woop noise that you describe when i exceed 100km/h.

The weird thing is the problem was only introduced after a wheel rotation during my 20k service (which included a wheel balance)

I took the car back to the service centre and told them to carefully re-check their balance.

I was told that one of the wheels (back passenger)is ever so slighty buckled (not sure how, maybe one of the trillion pot holes i try to avoid in vain everyday on our great Sydney roads).

Anyway they have re-balanced that wheel carefully and the sound is now virtually gone but still very slightly noticeable (around 100km/h)

The problem with a buckle is that the weights used to balance the wheel can vibrate off and if that happens the problem will come back.

 

Its the tyres for sure, Mine started making the same noise after the dealer rotated the tyres at the 30k service. I rotated them back and the noise decreased.

They have always been a noisy tyre though. I cant wait to put something better on

Cheers
Glenn

 

My 040's do the exact same thing. It's the tires. When I swapped the snow tires on, the noise went away. Swapped the 040's back in the spring, noise came back.

However, it's possible a common alignment problem is causing irregular tire wear, as that other thread mentioned. My snows are brand new and perhaps haven't worn enough yet to produce the noise.

 

The noise occurs right throughout all speeds ... it gets louder when braking though. The car's now been back three times to have alignments and wheels balanced - each time it's reduced the noise, but then it's come back full boar a week or two later.

These tyres are loud on the inside of the car ... sorta like driving on those off-road tyres some 4WDers use. Loud!

The thing that really ***** me is Bridgestone know full well about this problem with the RE040's, yet they keep selling them ... is Bridgestone now run by the dodgy bros.? Why sell a product which lasts a QUARTER of the life of any other product out there for the same cost or less to consumers?

 

Yes and also, why do Mazda keep putting them on their cars.

Andrew

 

marketing strategies... they were hoping to get some more money out of you after the sale

 

Yes, I know ... one which is flawed.

 

Interesting thing was one of the quickest and most consistent drivers at Wakefield did some back to back testing with the stock tyres and some more expensive SO3's that he bought and found that the stock tyres were 0.6sec a lap quicker.

Guys running Yoko's, etc also seemed a bit slower than those with the stock tyres.

So they may have some downsides as a road tyre but they seem to prove themselves on the track.

(Obviously, semi-slicks, etc are faster - I'm talking road tyres here).

 

I'm starting to think that the wow-wow noise is some sort of harmonic interaction, a bit like the beats you get when you tune in a musical instrument and you're close but not right on the right note. I think it could be due to one or more tyres having worn to a slightly different diameter, and the "note(s)" are thus slightly different.

As has been said before, there is apparently a lot in tread design in reducing road noise. It is probable that at the higher performance end there is some sort of compromise between road noise and performance, and choices have to be made.

It has also been said before that the 225/45 RE040 is close to the smallest size that can be squeezed onto an 8" rim, and that may have quite a bit to do with Mazda's decision to go with this size to maximize turn in etc. It would seem then that until another manufacturer decides to offer this size on the Australian market at an acceptable price, Bridgestone will treat RX-8 customers how they like.