Tyre knock/squeek

H

HGoward

Member
 Loughborough
Afternoon all,

I own a 06 Z4 Coupe on 129k. Just before Christmas it developed a rubbery knocking noise from the rear drivers side wheel. It went into the garage start of Jan and they stripped everything back and couldn't figure it out. They moved the wheel to the front axle and different side and the noise always followed. They then noticed that the Michilin pilot sport 4 that i had put on 5000 miles before by Kwik fit was put on with the inside wall on the outside(pretty obvious mistake)

So they recommended that I try a new tire to see if this stops it. Well I complained to Kwik fit and had photo evidence the tire was on wrong and they agreed to fit a new tire free of charge. I got the car back yesterday and the noise is still there and is unbearable.

Due to the fact the knock/ rubbery squeek moved so easily it must be something to do with the alloy then, but I haven't got any obvious symptoms of a cracked or buckled alloy such as vibrations, other than this constant knock when the wheel rotates. Also on another note the volume of noise varies depending on the weight on the well such as going round corners, it will increase for example when I go round a right hand turn and weight loads into that tire but then the noise disappears when going left and load is taken out.

Any help on this would be greatly appreciated.
 

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The should be staggered so the rears will be wider than the fronts? Have the been refurbished recently? Are all the little bolts in place and are they tight?
 
Yes I know, they just did it temporarily to see if the noise would move, the fronts are 225 and rears 255. In my years ownership I've never had them refurbished, although am wanting to get it done soon.
 
Hi and welcome to the forum. Nice looking motor.
If the noise moves with the wheel then it must be something to do with that wheel.
If the tyre has been off, back on and rebalanced and there's nothing wrong with the tyre then it must be the wheel.
I'm assuming you've checked for run out? Spun it to be sure it runs true?
Failing that then really you are only left with an issue with the wheel construction itself, which come down to the assembly of it and the tightness of all those bolts.
I'm at a loss to think what else it could be.
 
Thank you.

I had really hoped replacing the tyre would sort it, but sadly not.

When it was balanced they said it was perfect.

I've not personally been able to try spinning the tyre when its in the air but i guess it could be something to do with that.

I've messaged a couple alloy repair places to see if they have heard of a crack or buckle causing this sort of noise.

This weekend I'm going to get it in the air and try my father in laws spare winter wheels which are sadly 225 so not the same size as the wheel causing the problem.
 
You can successfully balance a badly buckled wheel - I've had it done myself. Again - are all the little bolts nice and tight?
 
Just thinking out of the box, have you checked that the balancing weights are stuck on correctly? If there is a strip of them stuck on with adhesive backing, one end could be lifting and slapping back against the wheel with every rotation.
 
Rockhopper said:
You can successfully balance a badly buckled wheel - I've had it done myself. Again - are all the little bolts nice and tight?
Click to expand...
Ok that’s handy to know then, since there’s nothing obvious on the outside of the wheel but could possibly be buckled on inside then.
 
Zedebee said:
Just thinking out of the box, have you checked that the balancing weights are stuck on correctly? If there is a strip of them stuck on with adhesive backing, one end could be lifting and slapping back against the wheel with every rotation.
Click to expand...
I haven’t checked this but you would assume since I had a new tyre out on yesterday and it was rebalanced it should be reapplied so hopefully that wouldn’t occur. But I’ll give it a look over
 
I switched the wheel out today with a different one and the sound went right away. So assume there’s some sort of buckle on the old wheel that was causing a knock/scratch sound. Going to get it straightened out this week and see if that does the trick.
 
HGoward said:
I switched the wheel out today with a different one and the sound went right away. So assume there’s some sort of buckle on the old wheel that was causing a knock/scratch sound. Going to get it straightened out this week and see if that does the trick.
Click to expand...
Have you determined that it is definitely not a loose bolt in the that rim?
I'd think a buckle that caused the wheel to catch something would be easily visible.
 
HGoward said:
So they recommended that I try a new tire to see if this stops it. Well I complained to Kwik fit and had photo evidence the tire was on wrong and they agreed to fit a new tire free of charge. I got the car back yesterday and the noise is still there and is unbearable.
Click to expand...

This might sound silly but did they actually fit a new tyre or simply refit the old one the correct way.
 
enuff_zed said:
HGoward said:
I switched the wheel out today with a different one and the sound went right away. So assume there’s some sort of buckle on the old wheel that was causing a knock/scratch sound. Going to get it straightened out this week and see if that does the trick.
Click to expand...
Have you determined that it is definitely not a loose bolt in the that rim?
I'd think a buckle that caused the wheel to catch something would be easily visible.
Click to expand...
Not completely but i did go round all the bolts on the rim and there weren't any that were obviously loose or needed to be any tighter.

I thought it would be obvious too, and I couldn't see any obvious wear on the wheel, although there were a couple scratches on the inside lip of the wheel but I just put that down to someone not being careful with the wheel.
 
Chippie said:
HGoward said:
So they recommended that I try a new tire to see if this stops it. Well I complained to Kwik fit and had photo evidence the tire was on wrong and they agreed to fit a new tire free of charge. I got the car back yesterday and the noise is still there and is unbearable.
Click to expand...

This might sound silly but did they actually fit a new tyre or simply refit the old one the correct way.
Click to expand...


Its definitely a new wheel since for some reason they swapped a PS4 for a PSS as i found yesterday when washing the car, so now I have PS4 and a PSS on the same axle which isn't ideal
 
Just spoke to the wheel guy about it, and he's said that he couldn't see any obvious damage to the wheel including wear on inside edges. Although he did suggest that it could be the fill valve on the wheel moving in the hole which I found weird or the fact that it has cheap centre caps.
 
Can't see how the valve would move and still seal?
However, it's an easy check to remove the centre cap and see what happens without that?
 
Ok so the tyre guy came back over last night to give me a hand and out the car in the air to see if we could replicate the noise in the air to no avail. However I think we’ve found what’s been causing the noise. He pointed out that the bump stops on both my suspension struts we’re rock solid and broken into two bits. And then when he flicked it up it made the exact noise that I had been hearing. Therefore I’m going to try and get these changed and see if the noise stops. And the reason it sounded rotational was because it was from noise and turbulence in the wheel arch moving the bump stops up and down on the strut and it explains why at higher speeds the air was just holding the bump stop up and I couldn’t hear anything.
 
HGoward said:
Ok so the tyre guy came back over last night to give me a hand and out the car in the air to see if we could replicate the noise in the air to no avail. However I think we’ve found what’s been causing the noise. He pointed out that the bump stops on both my suspension struts we’re rock solid and broken into two bits. And then when he flicked it up it made the exact noise that I had been hearing. Therefore I’m going to try and get these changed and see if the noise stops. And the reason it sounded rotational was because it was from noise and turbulence in the wheel arch moving the bump stops up and down on the strut and it explains why at higher speeds the air was just holding the bump stop up and I couldn’t hear anything.
Click to expand...
Interesting.
How long has that B12 kit been on there?
Sounds like it was fitted with the original bump stops!

However, this doesn't really answer your initial issue that the sound moves around the car with the wheel?
 
enuff_zed said:
HGoward said:
Ok so the tyre guy came back over last night to give me a hand and out the car in the air to see if we could replicate the noise in the air to no avail. However I think we’ve found what’s been causing the noise. He pointed out that the bump stops on both my suspension struts we’re rock solid and broken into two bits. And then when he flicked it up it made the exact noise that I had been hearing. Therefore I’m going to try and get these changed and see if the noise stops. And the reason it sounded rotational was because it was from noise and turbulence in the wheel arch moving the bump stops up and down on the strut and it explains why at higher speeds the air was just holding the bump stop up and I couldn’t hear anything.
Click to expand...
Interesting.
How long has that B12 kit been on there?
Sounds like it was fitted with the original bump stops!

However, this doesn't really answer your initial issue that the sound moves around the car with the wheel?
Click to expand...

To be honest I'm not certain when they were fitted without looking through the invoices, I just know they were on the car when I got it and look like they have been on there a couple years.
These bump stops are kind of a dark red.

And I am thinking the same thing that it doesn't explain why the sound moves with the wheel. I'm going to get it booked into a specialist today to see if they can figure it out kind of thing.
 
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