I have been experiencing noise on my 2008 TL Type-S between 30 and 50 MPH.

Like a humming noise from the tires.
I have 4 General GMAX AS03 tires with 7500 miles on them.

At very low speeds you don't hear it. On the interstate at more than 60mph it doesn't make the noise.

I know I have a slighty bent rim on the back, could it be the cause of it?

Could it be a wheel bearing? I only have 60K miles on the car.

Is it the tires? Maybe they are just loud?

I test drove my friend's Mercedes yesterday and it made me realize how noisy mine is. Plus, his is a 2008 Mercedes C63 AMG and he was still running his winter tires.

Could be due to abnormal wear from rear toe being out of spec. Take a close look at your rear tires, especially the left one.

So an alignment could fix the issue maybe?

My last one was in the fall of last year

^Not necessarily going to fix it with an alignment. If your rear tires have started wearing unevenly( "cupping" in the treads), then you will need new tires also to fix this issue. My wifes car started doing this and we had to replace the rear tires.

I just purchased a used set of tires from a member and even though they have plenty of tread life, they have "cupping" wear going on in the inner tread blocks, causing the tires to hum at certain speeds. Sounds like mud tires on a 4x4 going down smooth paved roads at 100mph, lol.


I would start with an alignment, but be prepared to buy two new tires

They look fine. Don't they?

Pictures

^they appear fine. Hard to tell with the pics, but look for wear like this on the treads





I changed my wifes Falken 912's after a 1.5 years because they got loud. I put Michelin harmony's back on her car and it rides 10x better (more comfort, low noise, long tread life). It could be the tread design of the tires you are running. If they are a high performance tire, they will be louder.


Edit: CLICK HERE for reviews and HERE

Yeah, they do, at least from that view. The wear on the rear is usually on the inside edge of the affected tire/s.

You didn't say in your original post, but can you isolate the noise to either front or rear? What about side to side?

I took my car on the interstate and above 60 mph the tires are pretty much silent.

Actually up to 25 or 30 mph they are fairly quiet.

It starts making that humming sound at 25mph all the way up to about 50mph.

I used the dB meter pro app and at 70mph I got an average of 62dB.

Again could a bent wheel or an out of balance tire could cause the humming I am experiencing at lower speeds only?

No a bent wheel or out of balance tire could not cause that. Sounds like maybe a wheel bearing, or a driveline issue. Certain driveline imbalances will only be able to be heard up to 50ish mph then after they go away

I'm curious to know what the answer to your issue is because just bought these tires for my winter setup. While I hope it's not something major going on with your car, I hope it's not tire related either.

I thought any directional tire are meant to be louder than non-directional equivalents.., in general.

I tried recording the noise it makes with my Iphone.

I can definitely hear it.

I rode in my friend's 2006 Acura TL A-Spec and it does the exact same thing at 30 mph, same noise and all. He has different tires so I'm thinking it's a tire issue and I need to look for touring tires. I have to admit though, the humming is pretty much gone on the highway but at lower speeds, like 30 mph it is super annoying, you feel like one of your wheels is coming loose.

I am also having this "humming" issue with my tires. Continental ExtremeContact DW w/ 5k-6k on them. Alignment and balancing was recently done. This started happening only after I rotated my tires front to back. Any ideas why??

this just started happening on my TL... its so weird because i just replaced the front tires... i'll be due for a tire rotation soon so on the next oil change ill swap the tires front to back to see if it helps for a bit... otherwise, i'll just wait until its time to change the tires again and go back to an OEM spec...

Due to some negative camber in rear on these TL's we need to rotate the tires frequently, at least every oil change (7K) if not 5K. This will help even out the wear.

I made mistake on first set of tires of rotating every other oil change (14K) because that is what I'm used to doing on other Honda passenger vehicles. This resulted in the vibration and inboard shoulder cupping some of you speak of. However, TL is more "performance" oriented and is different. Only reason I did every other is because I put 35K a year and so I'm changing oil myself frequently, saving some time....in this case not worth it.

I also keep me tire pressures 35 psi all-around for fuel MPG and to resist the flat-spotting that seems to occur. This did help minimize flat-spotting.

I've only used Continental ExtremeContact DWS tires on my TL since about 90K and have 166K now. First set I replaced at 45K (50K rated tires) due to me not rotating every oil change, as mentioned above. Currently, on 2nd set and they are wearing more evenly than the first set, been doing rotations every 7K oil change.