I have a 2001 outback with 75K miles on it, with all-season Bridgestone Potenza's, 30,000 miles on them.

 

Recently, the front left tire seems to be making road noise... like a tire-to-the-road hum, that is most noticeable at higher speeds on bends in the road. I have had the tires rotated recently to see if the noise would go away. Also, aligned.

 

Some wear pattern on tires... the tire shop says cupping. The shocks are fine, I am told. I had a cv joint on the right side replaced about 4 months ago. Is that related? Could this be noise from bearing problems? Could it just be noise from worn tires?

Cupping typically occurs when there are loose suspension parts or tire imbalance, and can be made worse when combined with misalignment. Tires that have an uneven wear pattern will definitely be noisier than those that have even wear. Hopefully the shop that did the alignment checked for loose parts first, because aligning a vehicle that has sufficiently worn parts is usually a waste of time/money.

 

It would seem prudent at this time to have another shop check the suspension, including struts/springs/bearings, for wear/damage/looseness. If the wheels/tires haven't been dynamically balanced recently, that should be considered. Have the balancer run at a few different speeds; if the balance changes with speed, there may be a tire defect.

I am having same problem with my 97 OB, 95 k miles...but with new tires (Nokian WR) that were balanced at time of install in December. Noise is same as you describe and seems most prominent at 40 mph when turning toward the right. I drove with a service tech who thought it may be wheel bearings so we're bringing it in to put it up on a lift this week. Will let you know how it works out.

I am having same problem with my 97 OB, 95 k miles...but with new tires (Nokian WR) that were balanced at time of install in December. Noise is same as you describe and seems most prominent at 40 mph when turning toward the right. I drove with a service tech who thought it may be wheel bearings so we're bringing it in to put it up on a lift this week. Will let you know how it works out.

 

 

Thanks for your response. I look forward to hearing from you after the diagnosis.

It was a bad left front wheel bearing (or is it bearings?) in my case. Got it fixed and now it rides perfectly. No noise, no vibration.

Good luck.

Just an update on the repair. I had the left front hub bearing replaced and that corrected the problem.

Thanks for your response. I look forward to hearing from you after the diagnosis.

 

it's a wheel bearing. you're not going to get a road hum from the tread on all seasons. only big ol' jeeps with mudders go down the road going, "WOM WOM WOM WOM WOM"

 

 

 

 

 

 

(EDIT)= this was posted without reading the rest of the thread....my bad.

One of these days, Subaru will figure out how to do wheel bearings. Just had BOTH my front hubs replaced. Left front was growling bad, right front was starting to go. The kicker is, this was on an 06 Outback with 2900 miles.

Even though they were replaced under warranty, I'm still not a happy camper. For the life of me, I can not understand why Subaru chose to try and reinvent something as basic as this - and managed to screw it up.