Last year I had a loud drumming noise from the rear of my 1999 Vectra 1.8. I had the rear wheel bearings checked and they were found to be okay as far as could be said without replacing them. I then replaced the nearly worn up Avon tyres with Continentals and everything was quiet again.
18000 miles on and the noise is back again but possibly louder than last year. Has anybody else come across this sort of problem?
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Yes. The original Goodyear NCT's on my Vectra sounded just like the whine of a failing rear wheel bearing on some road surfaces after they'd covered about 10 thousand miles or so. The replacement Michelins got rid of the problem.
JS
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Thanks for your reply John S.
May I ask if you wore the Michelins out without the noise returning, or are you still running them?
Brian
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For reference, I had Firestones (original fitment) on my previous Vectra, and never experienced any additional road noise as they wore down.
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brianrh, yes, my brother has had a similar occurence with a Primera, and it has just made me realise that a whining type noise from the back of my 406 that I thought was a wheel bearing starting to go, has gone, and I replaced the rear tyres about two months ago.
Reggie
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brian
No, didn't wear the michelins out, but the rears had done about 30k when I sold the car and there was no return of the noise.
JS
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Common problem, due to the amount of camber designed in to the rear wheel assembly to aid handling. My 2000W Vectra GSi Estate would generate this problem with each set of rear tyres once the first few thousand miles of use was passed. By the time the tyres were worn out (only on the inner shoulder, with the outers like new), the drone was by far the loudest noise source. Sounded exactly like a wheel bearing failing. OEM Yokos and the Avon ZZ1s fitted thereafter by the leasco had the same problem.
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Continentals as fitted to the goona got louder and louder as they wore down. Didnt realise till they got changed.
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This does seem to be fairly common particularly on the Vectra. It's strange that it's only been on the last 2 sets of tyres that I've noticed this problem. The first two sets of tyres (up to approx 50000 miles) there was no noise as the rear tyres wore.
I've also noticed lately a resonance at about 82mph where the rear suspension seems to develope a bit of vibration as well as the noise. Is this likely to be soggy rubber bushes coming into play as well do you suppose?
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SjB
Yes, the uneven wear seems like a standard Vectra effect. My car (SRi hatch)was the same. The rears wore the inner shoulder preferentially, but as they lasted 50k miles, it wasn't a great problem. I could have afforded new tyres if I'd had a pound for the number of times my friends said 'John, are you sure you've haven't got a wheel bearing failing back here?'.
JS
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The rears wore the inner shoulder preferentially, but as they lasted 50k miles,
From past experience, if the inner shoulder of the rear tyres wear within a couple of thousand miles, then the suspension bushes have worn - common problem apparantly.
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DD
I've heard this, but in this case the inner edge wear didn't appear suddenly. The replacements were showing only signs of the uneven wear 35k miles later when I sold the car.
JS
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I wonder why uneven wear across the tyre would lead to the drumming noise? If the wear is across the tyre would the tyre go out of balance or is it related to the change in mass or rolling radius of the tyre?
Or are we saying that these are both characteristics of the design of the rear suspension?
Any of you mechanical engineery types out there have any ideas?
Brian
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I wonder why uneven wear across the tyre would lead to the drumming noise? If the wear is across the tyre would the tyre go out of balance or is it related to the change in mass or rolling radius of the tyre?
From personal experience with my aforementioned Vectra GSi Estate which didn't have worn suspension bushes but which did through pronounced and as-designed negative camber wear the inside shoulders of the rear tyres heavily:- With wheel and tyre assembly removed from the car, the tread blocks could be seen to have worn unequally; instead of all being the same height throughout the circumference, they varied by being tall, short, tall, short, tall, short, etc. This probably happened because of the way they were loaded and squashed as they wore. When the tyres were all but worn out (because the shorter blocks were flush with the carcass) the noise increased dramatically I assume because nothing was left to absorb vibration (which noise is).
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