HELP! Odd tire issue

[mrjoshyman]

Ok, so today I attempted to put on my winter wheels/tires. This is going to be the first winter with my BC coilovers. i swapped the rear tires without issue, then i swapped the fronts....heres where the trouble came. when i went to move my car i noticed an intense squeal from the front driver side tire...sounded like the rubber part of the tire rubbing against something. i did some investigative work and the sounds is only coming from the front driver side tire, it doesn't appear to be rubbing against the tire well b/c i tested it with the front tire jacked up and it still made that noise. i tried troubleshooting what was causing the noise with no luck. i'm completely perplexed at how this could be happening, especially to only one tire. as far as i know the setup on both front tires is the same...

any ideas what could be rubbing or any reason why id only have a squeal coming from one tire?

 

[vtakk]

swap wheels to verify it is not the rim/tire itself;

then load suspension and use this

 

[mrjoshyman]

i tried chalk, water, baby powder...anything to coat the wheel and see where it was rubbing with no luck. i didnt even have to load the suspension b/c this noise is present when the suspension is not loaded. tomorrow i guess i will try a different snow wheel/tire, although it is strange because i ran these wheels/tires last season w/o issue

 

[vtakk]

i tried chalk, water, baby powder...anything to coat the wheel and see where it was rubbing with no luck. i didnt even have to load the suspension b/c this noise is present when the suspension is not loaded. tomorrow i guess i will try a different snow wheel/tire, although it is strange because i ran these wheels/tires last season w/o issue

if you can reproduce without loading the suspension (wheels pointed straight)
- tire -> strut housing
- rim -> brake caliper

what else? can you just get some light and keep turning the wheel with your hands and see? you would feel when resistance will appear.. assuming surfaces touching.

-- I got squeaky high pitching noise from right front but it was either rock caught between rim/brake caliper or between brake pad/rotor

 

[bacarl]

^I had something similar that must have been a rock or something. I run 16" winter wheels so it gave me a scare when I pulled out of my lot and heard it, but after I had rolled the car back and forth a few times to reproduce/diagnose the noise it went away. Never did figure it out.

I would start by swapping the front wheels side to side, or the driver side wheels front to back. If you ran these wheels last winter with no issues, then it's not the brakes rubbing, and if there are no obvious clearance issues to the suspension, then it shouldn't be the new BCs causing the problem. Only thing that makes sense might be something caught between rim/brake or pad/rotor. By taking the wheels off to swap them around you'll be able to take a close look at the brakes as well as free up anything caught in there.

 

[Mid_Life_Crisis]

Swapping the wheels might fix it.
The reason being that you might have the wheel mounted slightly cocked or off center. Not enough to see easily, but enough to stress something. You wouldn`t be the first person in this forum it`s happened to.

 

[Nliiitend1]

What are your specific winter wheel/tire specs??

 

[mrjoshyman]

so i've switched wheels around and any winter wheel makes noise in the front driver side, but when i put a summer wheel/tire in the front driver side the noise/rubbing goes away which tells me its a clearance issue and not a rock stock or anything like that. im guessing the the tire on the winter wheels r touching the strut, but still don't have an explanation why it would be the front driver side and not front passenger as well

wheel specs i believe are sport edition wheels 17*7.5 with an offset very close to stock +52 if i remember correctly, tires r blizzzaks 215/50

could i just need an alignment? im getting ready to purchase some 5mm spacers to see if that resolves the issue...

 

[bykeryder4life]

On my bc coils I had to grind down a tab that the brake line or whatever it is mounts to because it was coming into slight contact with the very edge of my rims inner lip and it caused a loud squeal like described...

 

[mrjoshyman]

On my bc coils I had to grind down a tab that the brake line or whatever it is mounts to because it was coming into slight contact with the very edge of my rims inner lip and it caused a loud squeal like described...

how did you figure out exactly what was causing the noise? in this picture:

which part did you grind down?

 

[vtakk]

I think this one:

don't you feel when resistance appears when you rotate the wheel with your hands?

 

[bykeryder4life]

thats it man I grinded it down and rounded it off and all is well.

 

[CnoTataymo]

You don've have to grind it, you can bend that back. That's what I did. When I installed mine, my stock wheels/tires hit that. All I did was bend it back enough so it won't rub.

 

[bykeryder4life]

good idea. how and where did you bend it at? pics? damn thing is pretty thick so I just thought the grinder was the best option.

 

[CnoTataymo]

I used a mallet. I hit it where it's circled. Just hit it and it will bend. Then try your wheel to see if it rubs.

 

[mrjoshyman]

thanks so much every1! got it to work. first i grinded it down, that wasn't enough so i put it in a vice and bent it with a mallet. seems to be working great now!

 

[CnoTataymo]

That's good. I think you wasted your time with grinding it down. Haha. As long as it doesn't rub anymore.