Why are my S-03's so loud?
 

I just came back from a road trip to vegas and I'm half deaf now. Lots of road noise the whole way - way louder than the stockers.

They are almost a year old and have approx 10k miles on them... still have the original tires up front and 245/45YR-18 Bridgestone Potenza S-03's in the back on my 2003 Performance

anyone else have this problem - thoughts on the matter?

cuz they're crap.

Hi,

I'm running 245/35/19 and 275/35/19 didn't find any noise but a lil bit slippery when it come to raining weather

have you checked for feathering? that gets loud after a while.

could be your OEM front tires

Check your alignment too. To much toe can cause excess noise.

bfg are even louder.

No noise from my S03s.

Don't confuse the 8,000 mile optimum [acoustic] design performance point LIMIT with the mileage when the tires become toatally unusable 2/32".

because S-03's are supposed to be quiet...they aren't very refined like a Michelin PS2. They're meant to be more tough and aggressive than quiet and mild mannered. And they get worse and worse as they wear on, whoo hoo ha ha ha!

aren't supposed to be that is....

I had them on my G. Very quiet IMHO. Like the other's have mentioned, check for feathering, etc.

And the tire noise is from where? Front or rear?

S03's are not quiet tires

So it turns out the front stock tires were super feathered - so I had them replaced with bridgestone reo50 pole positions - w/realignment - this cleared up all of the growl that previously occured while braking at slow speeds.

However - at 40+ mph, there is still more noise coming from the rear tires than what I remember having with the stockers before I put on the s03's

so my newb question is - is there any chance that it's a balancing issue on the rears that could be causing all this noise?

If you want quiet tires and are willing to give up some performane check out kuhmo ASX. I have them. Decent performance. A little bit too...soft or wavy and medium to medium-poor grip on dry. Great grip on wet. Ive never slipped on wet. VERY quiet. Way quieter than stock.

+1. Love the ASXs got them from Tirerack last winter. Going to go with snows this year but they are fantastic in the rain.

My S-03s became VERY noisy after about 9k miles. I recently replaced them with Nitto NeoGens on my street wheels and they have been much quieter and for more comfortable on the road. They do have a slightly softer sidewall and I have to admit my grip confidence has been reduced a bit but overall for the money the Nittos are great STREET tires.

well, sh*t -

alot of the reason I got the s03's is b/c the survey on tirerack.com shows that they are high performance, but also b/c they are substantially quieter than the stockers

- which certainly is not the case right now.

no problem with my S3 Pole Position