Got winters installed... wtf did they do to my car?
 

So I got my baby ready for winter, undercoated and a set of Goodyear winters (225/50/17) on steelies... and now whenever I hit a bump I hear this horrible noise coming from only the back right wheel. Everything looks fine with the wheel, does anyone know what this could be? and why it would only be one wheel thats affected?

It never made this noise before I got the winters put on...

Are the tires bigger/wider then your other ones? It could be the tire is hitting the wheel well?

He indicated 225/50/17 which should not hit the wheel wheels. Same width as stock and not too tall given 17" rims.

Sounds like a shock issue on that one corner. Don't know what they could have [improperly] done to affect that tho' in a relatively simple wheel swap.

I agree with huey, it definately sounds like a shock issue. One thing they did do on undercoating is put it up on a lift so they could get under it, then the lift had little hoists to lift it up higher so they could get the tires off the ground while its on the lift, if you can follow that.. I wonder if they put the hoists in a bad spot..

I've only had the car since April, so I could probably take it right back to mazda. But I feel I should take it back to the tire place and be like.. hey, this never happened before, until the day you put these wheels on.

What are the rim offsets....if the rim moves the tire out from the stock position...it will make it rub

Does the outside of the rim look like it's in the same spot as the stock wheels..or out more?

Rears usually rub at about 1-2 o'clock at the back of the wheel well

dannobre -

it's out a little bit more, but it looks like it has clearance in the wheel well of a couple inches. And if that was so, wouldn't my left rear tire also rub? Currently it's only the right side.

Just for clarification - I'm at work so I don't have the rims in front of me, my summer tires are the mazda OEM tires on the mazdaspeed 18" rims. (It's a 2007)...

I just threw that in there so you would look...It will sometimes rub on the right first because of the crown of the road...and the fact that most people take right turns harder than left......

Could be an end-link, a strut, or the spring

Does the car sit level?? If the spring is screwed up the ride height will likely be different....

End link is easy to check......

make sure all the BOLTS are tight...and all bolts behind the wheel

Just an update, I took my car in this weekend back to the tire shop. They did an alignment to try and determine what was wrong, and it turns out that the rear tires are way out of whack - so much to the point that if you look from the rear of the vehicle towards the front on either side you can see that on the right side, the rear tire is out about a quarter width of a tire further then the left rear tire!!! The alignment showed this as well, that the tire is out and towards the rear of the vehicle.

The guy at the shop asked if I'd hit a curb, which of course I haven't. He also said it was too far off and it couldn't be adjusted that far.

What bugs me is that I bought the vehicle as a demo with 10k kilometers on it, who knows what some of the other bum that test drove the vehicle did to it. I'm going to bring it in to Mazda and hope this can be covered under warranty. I guess the problem never showed up on my summer rims/tires.

Winter snow tires are obviously much softer than summer tires, so [irregular] wear does show up more quickly.

That is a shame and agree it was probably someone [wrecklessly] test driving the car.

that sucks, probably will not be warrantied, you have no proof it wasnt you that did it, unfortunately. just keep calm and if the dealer gives you grief, call Mazda corporate and give them the sob story.

GL, hope it all works out.

How many miles? Shock could be blown. Like it's been said, make sure everything is tight. Is the offset correct?

yeah take it to mazda is the best idea

So get this:

I took my car to mazda, and they take a look at it... And do some measurements...

Turns out they put 3 of one rim and 1 of another on my car (the 1 rim having a different offset then the other 3!!!)

I called the tire place back and they were like "I thought I checked that!"

Whatever, fix the thing... if there is any damage to the 8, I'm gonna be FURIOUS!

WOW....that's crazy. Free rotations/flat fixes for life!

try to get the rims for free...maybe.....wort a try