Noisy Tires - Anyone Else?
 

Now have 28,000 miles. Looked after car with care, checked tire pressures regularly with accurate gauge, rotated and rebalanced properly every 8000 miles. Have OEM Bridgestone Potenza's still. On most road surfaces, they are as noisy as hell - sounds like "cupping" as they make a wow..wow..wow..wow type noise going down the road in time with rotational speed. Nothing is caught in treads. Got to the point where i`m going to shoot the fu_k__rs with a large shotgun soon!!

Anyone else?

uh just by new tires instead of using the gun and then buying new tires. 28k miles is great on those tires.

You're my new hero. 28k on the Brigdestones? There's all sorts of stories of members replacing their's at 12 to 15. Quite frankly I think the tires aren't expected to last as long as your's did. But you've given us all a new target to shoot for. 28k!

I've got him beat- (and I shouldn't admit this, because someone is sure to yell at me for it)I had 32.5k on mine- I've known they badly needed to be replaced for the past 4 months, but I was lazy(and my husband was bitchy about spending so much money for tires). But GOOD LORD were they loud after about 25k- you could barely hear anything other than the tires roaring. Thanks to a pothole, I finally had to buy new ones. Pick up the car tomorrow, and I'm sure it will be amazing how quiet they will be.

TCReedy, you definitely need new tires. Don't be dumb like I was- I am very lucky it was a pothole that got me, and not something to actually do with the tires.

32,500 :eek:

Yup. Same exacty sound, though at 9,000 miles or so. Glad you posted this, as I was kinda wondering about mine...

Never really noticed it before, but I just swapped out my Pirelli SnowSports and put the 040s back on... and DANG the 040s are loud in comparison. Hard to believe SNOW tires were quieter.

yeah, I know- not exactly the brightest move I've ever made.

I couldn't resist

My original Bridgestones in front are making a drumming noise at high speed. 24k miles now. I hope to get another 5k miles out of them though.

Noisy Tires
 

What I forgot to mention is that it all started at about 9000 miles. Also, one third of the time I have very excellent Bridgestone Blizzak snowies on the car. Those are smoother and quieter! Even though the car has 28K miles, the OE Potenzas have more like 18K and planty of juicy tread. I must be driving the thing like a complete puff compared to you guys!

Tom

Try going to your local wheel alignment center and have the car re-aligned. You'll probably find it needs adjusting. I took mine the other day.

what type of tyres u guys suggest to put on my 8 after its worn out ??

i hate it too....very noisy.

I too experience the LOUD road noise after driving the Protenzas. The more miles I put on the car, the louder it got. Finally, last weekend I bought some new Cooper Zions, which were rated [Z] and jhad all the same specs as the Protenzas, and better.

The noise is GONE, BUT I now notice some spongy steering with the Cooper. The Portenzas definitely gripped the road a lot better, especially at speeds above 100 mph. Nothing major, just some slight "sponginess" (I don't know how else to describe it).

BTW...the Coopers were $159......$50 per tire cheaper than the Protenzas.

I have 18K on my "8" and the tires have the wow..wow...wow noise also. But I must admit I didn't rotate them until 15k.... my bad.

How about these:
Great ratings across the board...noise level, dry handling etc:

http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires....omCompare1=yes

By the way great price too on the tires lined above (msge #15)

My car has ~12,500 miles on the Protenzas tires and they are very loud also. :-(

28k miles is crazy. I just replaced my stocks and I'm at 15k miles. This is also including 2 winters where the stock tires weren't even used.

I wouldn't even consider an all-season tire for this car though, considering how poorly the stock tires perform. Tires are honestly a get what you pay for item, sure there are cheap ones out there that will last you 30k miles but you won't be able to do half what your car is capable of. Since the purchase of my new tires, I'm practically learning to drive a different car, turns that would normally send my rear out or cause stability control to come on, now give me no problems.

We own sports cars, you should be willing to accept the fact that you're not going to get 30k miles out of a set of tires. If you can't afford the tires don't buy the car.

Just my 2 cents.

Did you replace the stocks with the same type of tire? I thought the best dry handling and grip was achieved with severely worn tread (as it becomes more like a racing slick). Isn't the tread only there for channeling water away and gripping on loose or uneven surfaces?

No I wanted nothing to do with the stock tires. The stock tires are seriously good for nothing but costing way more than they should. You can get tires that grip as well if not better on wet and dry for 50 -75 less per tire.

I got a set of Pilot Sport PS2s and haven't regretted it at all. I honestly don't care if these things only last 10k miles they stick like glue, wet or dry.

As far as more grip when they are severely worn, I don't think it works that way due to the compound that the tire is made of, I could be wrong though.

I see. I don't plan to get the Potenzas when I replace my tires. I'd like something that performs as well, but doesn't wear quite as fast.

That makes sense--I didn't really think about that.

The Noisey Potenzas...what to replace with?
 

I`m glad you guys took the time to write back about these noisey Potenzas. I dont want to sound arrogant or anything but I work as a Chief Engineer of vehicle engineering in an automotive company. We don`t generally engineer cars to have noisey tires..in fact we are desperate to avoid it because ultimately we get too worried about what we call "customer piss-off factor". Its all about reputation and generating repeat sales - beating our competitors. Japanese auto companys like Nissan, Mazda, Toyota etc usually take extreme care to get their products right. I really hope that from time to time some Mazda marketing people read this website (just as we do with ours and competitor websites to get the customer intel). Mazda, your choice of tires for this car was very poor. May the RX8 owners suggest that you find a better manufacturer for the next model year release. Often tire decisions are made on the basis of selection of the lowest priced bidder..but the drawback of that is you usually get the tire product which has the least amount of R&D effort invested into it. Lets move on - i`d be ok paying another 20 or 30 dollars for my car if it guaranteed a decent set of boots!

Anyway, enough preaching about tires. I`m going to research what to get next. I`d love to hear from RX8 owners out there about their feelings regarding their next purchase - whats gone well and whats not.

Meantime - I dare Mazda to write in to this thread to let us know what they think.

Cheers all

Tom

hey guys i have to replace my tires too....i am at 47km....not miles.....and they said the same thing potholes...i think it all bs...i was running on low air pressure for a while thats what caused it i think....regardless my tires developed a tumor...i am just wondering as a few of us have the same problem with the tires around the same time could it mean it a manufacturing defect....?? just a thought....i dont even know if we have the same prob.

Here is my 2 cents...I am driving on Sumitomo HTR+ all season...say whatever you want! The car def. doesn't handle like before, but at $220.00 a pop for the tenzas.....no way. Don't tell everybody what they can or cannot do. Not your money.... :rolleyes:

I agree with his 2 cents....regardless if i know the milage, that the tires would need to be replace 2 seasons earlier than the treadlife and the crappy acceleration.....darn i surely wouldn't have bought.....should have bought a Z or a lexus....atleast wouldn't have to make numberous amount of trips to the dealer....and lets not mention the headaches from the dealer.....oh well now that i am stuck with it....might as well enjoy the handling...lol

I have the wow wow wow sound too. I had an alignment done thinking that was the problem no dice... I won't be buying these when it comes time to replace. Beside the fact that these are heavy tires and overpriced.