As per my introduction post, I've just brought myself a diesel VRS.

The cars great apart from the road noise on the motor way.

Personally I think it's the tyres, so I'm gonna look at changing them for something quieter.

So what can you recommend in the line of some 18's? Or are they just this loud on the motorway?

Check your preasures mate. I had trouble with road noise and put a few threads up on here about it. Simple as uppin the preasures to 38psi sorted it.

I run mine at 34psi all round. Also worth getting a 4 wheel alignment check done with a hunter system

Sent from my Galaxy S5

If its a case you do need to change tyres, I can't recommend Uniroyal Rainsport 3's highly enough. Had them on my vrs for a few thousand miles until I sold it and they were great! Relatively cheap too when compared with Eagle F1's or Pilot Sports, which are both great tyres too. Paid €88 for Uniroyal 17's, Pilot Sports were €120 I think?

TBH it's a noisy car. You can make it better but it's never going to be a rival to an S-Class or a Phaeton.

 

Changing tyres can take the noise from appalling to merely bad.

 

I put on Goodyear Efficient Grip mostly because of the low noise rating. It did help.

I also had some of the cheaper bitumen sheet sound insulation in the rear. I don't think that did much.

 

If the sound is a loud droning from the rear you may have sawtoothed tyres. The solution to that is an alignment and replace the tyres plus praying to the motoring gods that it doesn't come back.

Had a play with the tyre pressures this morning before hitting the motor way, I think its made a slight difference in the noise, so it's a step in the right direction.

Driving the car it does pull a little, so a wheel alignment is on the cards this week.

I'll let you know how much or if that helps after its done.

They are noisy out back.

 

I lined my boot area & under the rear seat with several layers of cheap foam underlay and it helped a lot.

 

You really need a heavy mass layer to remove vibrations from drummy panels & a sound deadener layer for acoustic absorption.

 

This threads may help:

http://www.vwwatercooled.com.au/forums/f136/ulimate-soundproofing-99423.html?highlight=deadening#post1080409

 

Look right through this one

http://www.vwwatercooled.com.au/forums/f149/octavia-wagon-sound-deadening-57421.html

 

Post 20 onwards

http://www.vwwatercooled.com.au/forums/f78/planning-nice-audio-upgrade-rns510-octavia-94253-2.html

Check if the tires were mounted on the running sense

I've got some road noise in mine (09 estate) which I initially thought was rear bearings, but a quick jack-up and wheel spin has convinced me they're fine.

 

It sounds like the wheel is gently striking something on each rotation. The noise is worst at around 20mph, but not apparent going downhill or on newly laid roads. There's no obvious lumps on the tyre, no bumps while driving and no obvious deformation to the rim (although when checking over the tyre and rim I've had to do half of it by touch).

 

I'll be taking it to a friend's garage to get it over a pit to get another look, but any idea what else could be causing it in the meantime?

Tyres - flat spots or edge scallops.  Move them rears to the front & the noise will travel with the tyre

Ive had the 4 wheel alignmentdone and it's made a sizeable difference in the car.

First thing I noticed was the rolling resistance of the car had reduced. The noise levels had also dropped a fair bit.

I'm going to be adding some sound proofing to the rear of the car to just to bring it down a little bit more.

Thanks for the info guys, well worth spending that £65 for the alignment.

Let us know how you get on mate