I have just taken delivery of my new Octavia VRS estate.  A nice car and seems quicker than my old VRS and more comfortable.  Some issues with the media centre to resolve, but the biggest issue I have is with road noise.  19 inch wheels may help with road holding, but boy are they noisy.  Any thoughts here on reducing this?  Happy to put new rubber on if that reduces the volume, but not sure that will happen, or what rubber to buy.  Any thoughts here?

 

What tyre make, description, and size have you got?

Easier to advise if know what you have to compare against.

 

New cars come with summer tyres, the noise level will vary with temperature, but as a general rule as weather gets colder, tyres get harder, and can rumble more (and they don’t grip as well either).  Summer tyres usually poor in wet below about +10c, although nearer +4c in dry.  Useless in frost, sleet and snow.  Not great idea to be doing 70mph on a damp salted motorway at -3c with tyres that barely grip so don’t try using summer tyres all year.

 

I suspect vRS has been fitted with sport tyres, not touring tyres, and as their name suggests they are more about sharp handling than comfort.

 

Changing to 18 (or 17 inch) inch rims and deeper sidewall tyres should improve comfort.

 

Taking a bit of a punt here, but an all year tyre that seems to be coming out as quiet in recent tests is Pirelli Cinturato all season SF2.  But it is only few months old so not that many comparison tests with it.

 

 

Edited 3 October, 20214 yr by SurreyJohn
Typo

Thank you for this.  My car has 19 inch Bridgestones (225/40).  I can`t see any reference to them anywhere as being especially noisy, so I am going to call in a main dealer just in case its an actual mechanical problem.  But I will check out Pirelli Cinturatos as well.

Just had a look at the noise ratings for Bridgestone, Michelin and Continental in 225/45 R 19, all of the tyres rate 70-73 decibels, so it looks like it might be size dependant, not manufacturer dependant.

One of the reasons I chose Dunlop sport maxx was the lower DB noise rating. Though I can't remember what it was now!! 68 maybe?

Just to repeat from the AE Tyres thread - beware that the specified noise ratings are those measured outside the car rather than inside.  The tyre quietest outside doesn't necassarily mean it's the quietest inside.  Not many reviews measure or comment on noise inside.  Tyre Reviews was an exception last year, also looking at noise on smooth roads + rough surfaces (latter typically 10dB higher inside the car - that's 10x the Acoustic energy, but the way the ear works, that is perceived by humans as being about twice as loud.

 

Sadly this year they could only do outside measurements + only on smooth roads.  However internal comparisons do depend on how the tyre interacts with the car structure, bushes etc. & so even they can only be a partial indicationon a car different to the one tested.  not sure about how much difference tyre size makes inside.  Typically a lower profile tyre reacts louder to ridges/broken road suraces, but varies beteewn makers and even their own products.

 

As an aside, I did see something recently about the wheels proposed for the Dyson EV that was being developed, but found to be too costly to make.  They were proposing massive 25" diameter wheels, as they believed they rode better over poor roads - they did look to have very low profile tyres as well.  However, I'm not yet ready to take what they say at face value.

@royalrolandHave you checked and adjusted the tyre pressures you received the car with and reset the TPMS?

Does a few PSI up or down within the safe limits of the load you have in the car make any difference to the road noise you are hearing?

 

 

OT.

There are tyres designed and manufactured for use on EV's now, some have them as OEM,

but that does not make them suitable or a good choice for fitting to ICE vehicles. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited 8 October, 20214 yr by e-Roottoot

Following on from my message of 7 October about the unreliability of official tyre noise ratings, for how quiet the tyre is inside the car - this is illustrated in this week's Auto express Winter Tyre Test.  The tyre with the lowest rating (69db), Michelin Alpin, turned out to be the noisiest inside the cabin & the 2 tyres with the highest noise ratings (72dB) were amongst the quieter ones measured inside.  They commented in the text that the Michelin was noisy inside yet counter-intuitively actually had poor rolling resistance too.  On the other hand the quietest inside was Maxxix Premitra snow yet did have a reasonable outside noise rating of 70dB.

 

Just goes to further make the point that one should be wary of official noise ratings, if you want a quiet tyre.  There is a ? over the test though, most tyres show a pic of the latest Golf, but the Maxxis pic is of an older model, so not the same car.  If that was the car used, it may actually show how good the Maxxis is in this respect, as the recent 'Tyre Reviews' look at AW tyres particularly commented on the inherently low road noise of the latest Golf.  For information, the noise tests were done on a smooth tarmac road suface at 62mph (100kph).  Most tyre reviews I've seen recently seem to use Golfs.

 

Tyre noise outside is of some importance however - the other day I was walking along the footpath at the side of a busy main road (coarse road surface) in a 30mph limit town with houses close to the pavement.  The noise emanating from passing cars (probably mostly doing 40mph) was more than annoying, quiet wearing actually, glad I didn't live there, would send me round the bend

 

 

 

 

I took my bridgestones off my vrs wagon because of the noise from rear ,swapped all to avon zv7s ,made a big difference much quieter and nicer place to be .

On 06/10/2021 at 19:07, Routemaster1461 said:

Just had a look at the noise ratings for Bridgestone, Michelin and Continental in 225/45 R 19, all of the tyres rate 70-73 decibels, so it looks like it might be size dependant, not manufacturer dependant.

 

Tyre noise ratings are for external noise not cabin noise so are useless for judging cabin noise.

I've started to notice in the last few days, as temperatures drop, that the 17" Turanzas on my Karoq 1.0  are making a bit more road roar on tarmac road surfaces that are finished with coarse grit, than previously - like the road I commonly use within 1/2 mile from home.  This is when first starting off and when it is less than 4*C outside - I noticed it again this morning - down to 1*C at one point.  It's more a mid-to-high frequency roar than a tiring rumble thankfully and it is only a bit noiser, but I have noticed it on 3 occasions recently, but I do note that I am overly fussy about road noise.  After driving a while I'm not aware of the extra noise, which can mean one of two things.  Either the tyre has warmed up and so quietened down, or I've just got used to the noise - i think the former explanation is more likely.

 

It figures I suppose, summer tyres like the Turanzas aren't at their best below 10*C as I usefully learned  from this forum some time ago and presumably get excessively hard.  Roll on my next set of AW tyres on 16" wheels - I note the favourable comments made her about the Michelin XC2's, but Hancocks are still my current aspiration.

I remember the Bridgestones on my previous Octavia being super noisy and I got rid of them.

 

As for all season tyres, I can fully recommend the Hankooks (I have the Kinergy 4S 2). They provide brilliant and reassuring grip in all conditions. Nice and quite. Still good fuel economy. And perform very well in snow and ice.