'05 Mazda 3 hatch, excessive road noise
 

'05 Mazda 3 hatchback
48k miles
16k miles on the current set of tires
Tires: Cooper Z rated directional

We've had our mazda 3 for exactly one year, and we've noticed over the last few months that there is some excessive road noise.

Initially we had it into the dealer to diagnose the issue, and they tried to state that it was due to the fact that the tires hadn't been rotated. Well, I had rotated the tires myself, and verified that they were at the correct torque.

Next, I took it to an independent shop, they checked the alignment and said it was fine. They attributed the excessive noise to the fact that the car has a non-adjustable, negative camber which causes improper tire wear. The other possibility would be that the rims may have flat spots from hitting potholes etc.

Any ideas what could be going on? Is the independent place right? What level of road noise do you folks see in your 3.

Thanks in advance

Hey all, any ideas on this one, this noise is really starting to get to me.

thanks

"They attributed the excessive noise to the fact that the car has a non-adjustable, negative camber which causes improper tire wear."

you know I wondered about this - there is a teacher at my daughter's school who has a 2006 mazda s hatchback and doesn't even have 20,000 miles and had to have new tires.

and according to you your car had new tires around 30,000 miles.

to me that is ridiculous - especially with the price of the tires. to me you should at least get 40,000 out of them - I had an 86 mustang lx with the gt hardware and I got almost 50,000 miles out of the original tires that I bought brand new with the car.

I have been rotating my tires according to the manual - at 7500 miles at the dealer. I hope I get more than 20,000 - 30,000 miles out of these 17 inch tires.

I currently have 10,000 miles on the car so I guess time will tell but come on something isn't right if that is all you get out of the original tires.

we darn near got 60,000 out of the tires on our 1996 honda civic ex sedan. granted they aren't high performance like these and I wouldn't expect 60,000 miles out of them but I don't think 40,000 is asking too much.

^^ It isn't really fair to compare the stock tires on the 3 to another car.... it's likely that your mustang came with good tires on it. The 3 on the other hand comes with really crappy Goodyear RSA tires. They're noisy, they easily lose traction in wet conditions, and they're horrible in ice or snow. Add on to this that most people only get about 20-30k miles on them because they wear down quickly.... they only have a 200 treadwear rating.

Given the wear on these cooper zeons, I don't really think we'll get much over 30,000 on this set either.

I rotate the tires every 5000 miles, and still we're having these kind of issues. The independent shop said that if the tires weren't directional, we could move them to the other side, rotating the opposite direction, and that would correct the cupping the tires are experiencing.

whats happen to you is what happened to me. the tires are cupping on the inside and it creates the loud noise. i ordered the camber correction arms from ebay, i paid like 160 total and bought new tires. it fixed the problem.

So, is it just the rear-end that needs camber correction arms, or the front as well? Next, how do the camber correction arms affect the overall ride/handling of the vehicle?

Another thing, our 3 isn't lowered at all, how many of you with factory suspension are dealing with this?

mine is not lowered. and yes its the back only. it hasnt changed anything that i can tell

to donnie
 

donnie who makes the camber correction arms and how do i find them?

they are made by wicked and the cheapest place i found them was ebay @ 145.00

alright thanks a lot Donnie......were they hard to install?

heh, car and driver said this car (well, the sedan anyway) was naturally noisy... and damn did i believe it when i bought my '08 two weeks ago...

i slapped some Nitto Neo-gens, and some new rims on it and it pretty much vanished....

i thought that the toyo proxes that the car came with were good... they were just WAY too loud.

well the driver side was easyer than the passenger side, due to the gas tank. it took me 2 1/2 hours to put them on. if you find it hard to install, go to your local alinement place and ask the tech if he would install them.

I have an 05 Mazda 3 hatch. I've had it since it was new. Its got 42,000 miles on it and I'm on my second set of tires. Currently Have a set of BFG on it they are really nice tires but they are wearing horribly, and are very expensive. I've only had tham on the car for about 25,000. Are there any tires that wear better for this car?

alright thanks man i'll deff do that cuz i have a 05 sedan and that thing is soooo loud...when i drop my back seat down cuz of my sub box...it sounds like an airplane...and even with the seats up it sounds like that...i'll have to try it

A couple of notes from my experience. I have a '04 3s Hatch with 51K miles that has had road noise since day one. It must just the way the car is designed. Test drove a '08 Speed3. Engine is quite, but the road noise level hasn't changed. My OEM tires got 26K before they were replaced. This is extremely common and the OEM tires are extremely expensive. Got some Yoko ES100s that are about the 26K mark and have about half life left. Getting louder as they wear. Mine are wearing even. They get rotated every 5K.

I think changing tires is bound to make a smaller difference than getting smaller rims. Anyone here put 16 inch rims on?

cupping and camber
 

it is good (and bad) to see others are having the same problem as I am. I have gotten a lot of cupping on the rear tires accompanied with the road noise. I was able to get 45k miles on a set of 60k tires (yokohama 520's) with less than ideal rotation. I will have to give the camber kit a shot. Sorry to see Mazda hasn't address this problem.