Just bought a 2004 coupe with 37000 verified miles. Love the handling and acceleration but it has rather loud road noise or something coming from the back of the car even at speeds of 30 mph. Actually seems to decrease some at higher speeds. Is this normal? Is it tires (Tire man says tires ok), rear differential? Are there CV joints? Would appreciate ideas.

 

I've alwas noticed a certain amount of road noise with the vehicle but mostly from the tires. Wider is louder! Low profile adds to it also. I'm sort of use to it from other vehicles with the same DNA.

 

Maybe it's my imagimation but the noise seemed to increase dramatically when I changed to Nankang tires last year. Tomorrow I am mounting a new set of Michelin's so we will see if the noise gets less.

I sure hope so.

 

My roadster is quiet as a Cadillac up to 120. I run Bridgestone RE760's (a rounder tread profile) and neither hear nor feel the road. Even for a rag-top, wind noise is contained.

A lot of the square tread profile tires can be noisy, but from what you describe, something is wrong. A bad CV joint is a good guess.

 

I don't hear any mechanical noise in either coupe, but there is a certain amount of body or tire noise (hum?) that seems to "echo" around the fastback. Body noise from small bumps is more noticeable in this type of body style. I don't hear it in my roadster -- of course I mostly drive top down -- or in my Audi sedan.

 

Worn performance tires, out-of-alignment suspension, rear differential/joints can individually or collectively generate noise.

If you have performance tires and don't care about performance you will find that non-performance tires are more quiet.

If your suspension is out of alignment you could be "dragging" or "scuffing" a tire and that can make more noise than a well-aligned suspension.

These cars (the early model-years) were known to have differential failure. That would make a noise that changes frequency with speed, and can be louder or softer when you either step on or let off of the gas. You would probably feel vibration in the drive train but that would be hard to detect unless you had driven a car without the problem for quite a while.

Work through these in the order presented and you will find your culprit, though you should be aware that a coupe is a lot like a drum and noise tends to reverberate. If all is well and you prefer the tires you have, then your next move might be to Dynamat the entire car (at great expense to your wallet and car weight).

Between the stereo and my aging ears, It doesn't bother me. But then, my other vehicle is this so...

 

That's why the stereo has a volume ****.

 

I have a coupe and I find I get alot of road noise through the back of the car. I have the stock michelins. The road surface has a big impact on noise levels as well.

 

Road noise is normal...should decrease on asphalt...but yes, unless you try a different tire, you are going to get road noise...after a little while of driving...you will get use to it...

 

Weird, I have virtually the SAME exact problem, I know EXACTLY what you're talking about. 0-38mph is absolutely terrible but when going faster it is fine..

I'm taking my car to a few shops to see what they say... if you hear anything keep me posted and i'll do the same!

 

Mine was reasonably quiet for the first seven months after I bought it new then it developed road noise loud enough to make conversation in the car difficult and wind noise from the windows at anything above 60 mph.

The best clue I have as to the cause is that one fall day it had snow on the roof when I left for work in the morning but it got quite warm that day, melting the snow. Then it got cold and when I opened the door there was a frozen rivulet of water from the top of the door to the bottom on the body on the surface where the door latch hook is. The rivulet was unbroken where it crossed the area where the rubber seal between the door and the body is indicating that the door was far enough away from the body that the seal was not sealing. In other words, the door was not closing all the way.

In addition to that, if I have my arm against the door when I hit a bump I can feel the door moving in relation to the body.

Several trips to the dealer and one to another dealer and trips to two dealers who wouldn't work on the car didn't solve the problem. The last time I took it to the dealer they added a rubber overlay to the gasket around the top of the window which made the problems worse.

Possible causes:

The service technicians can't adjust the door latch properly (they've had more than six chances).

The door latch screws are stripped.

The welds that hold the body and frame together are separating (at the same time that the door problems started the car started to dart to the right whenever the right front wheel lost traction on a snow patch or wet manhole cover or pothole).

Good luck.

 

Thanks to all those who gave me advice concerning the noise level in my coupe.. I am almost used to it now. Maybe its because I am distracted by the thrill oof winding my way through the Texas hill country in a machine that can handle the curves with ease. I take it to the Chrysler service people tomorrow though for a schedule B maintenance just to be sure service is up to date and will ask them to check out the sound.

 

Ron, welcome to the forum! I suspect your road noise issue is a tire problem. What tires are on the car? On the other hand, it could be the rear hatch catch rattling. There is a TSB out to fix that at the dealer for free. Or, you can wrap electrical tape around the latch catch and save the hassle of leaving it at the dealer.

Also, are you aware of the CTC (Central Texas Crossfires group)?

One more thing, I'd like to add you to the Texas Crossfires list. https://www.crossfireforum.org/forum...mber-list.html

To do so, I need your city.

 

At 20k miles I replaced the stock Conti's with BFGoodrich tires that came off a new Mercedes roadster. They were wider (275's) and BOY are they loud. But then again, the car was loud on the highway before. Oh well, these stick like a dream. But it sounds like you might have other issues. Just wanted to put in my 2cents.

And Inferno- could you add me to the Texas list? I'm up here in Lubbock.

 

I'm running F1-AS's now and they can be pretty loud at times, Here's a good post on sound deadening, that may help if you want to go down that road.

https://www.crossfireforum.org/forum...oad-noise.html

 

At first the road noise from the back was loud. Having the rear gate adjusted helped, but there was still some extra noise. It took awhile to get to the bottom of it, but I figured out the rest of the noise.

The dealer put on one of those license plate covers. My wife was taking out a heavy box from the back and drug it over the edge. When this happened, the box broke the license plate cover. I didn't think much of it until I shut the gate and the cover bowed out. I looked closer and the cover has been rubbing on the tag lights. I removed the cover from around the plate and I lost more road/wind noise. Now that was a cheap fix.

 

Sometimes you just luck out and don't question why.