My recently acquired '97 TL 3.2 with 79K provides an exceptional ride but I'm not too impressed with the road noise. I plan on purchasing new tires soon and base most of my tire purchases on ratings at Tirerack.com. Has anyone here found a significant improvement in road noise after putting a particular tire model on their TL or applied any undercoatings which have helped with the noise issue. Any ideas would be appreciated.

 

Goodyear Comforttreads are an excellent buy.

What are your current tires?

 

Road noise is hard to get rid of. Even with the most quiet tires, you're going to hear something.

A lot of time road noise can be greatly minimized through the use of sound deadening material. There are mass loading materials such as Original dynamat (which sucks btw) and viscoelastic materials like dynamat extreme (much better, but cost an arm and a nut).

Some of the better part of the vehicle to help get rid of noise is the front door, the engine firewall (apply from inside car), and the floor of the car (particularly under driver and passenger seat).


To get you started, there is Raamat BXT sound deadening mats. It comes in a roll of 62.5 square feet for about $120 or so. Not a bad deal considering the mats are thick and they deaden very well. This is by far one of the better ways to reduce road noise.

 

The tires on my TL are Bridgestone Eagers on the front and Continental ContiProContact on the rear... certainly tires I would not have selected.
I'll start by replacing all four tires. Tirerack is my primary source for tires and advice. Their customers' reviews on the Goodyear Comfortread shows a definite strength in road noise reduction
If the tires don't make a vast improvement I'll look for the Raamat BXT next. I'm wondering where you find the Raamat. I found the Dynamat website and took a quick glance at their products to see if Raamat was listed. Googling Raamat didn't bring up much.
Thanks for your help.

 

www.raamaudio.com

It's equivalent to Dynamat Extreme, but without the extreme cost