Loud BFG AT Tires

What I have
I have a 2wd 2011 Tacoma. I drive mainly on freeways/highways.

At about 10,000 miles I installed bilstien 5100s on all four wheels. I have installed the Icon 3 leaf pack and also the Light Racing UCA. In addition I bought some blemished American Eagle 17 inch rims and BFG All terrain tires 270 17 70. I installed all of this in a matter of 2 weeks and then afterwards went to an offroad shop and they were able to align my wheels.

The problem
I'm now at 43,000 miles and I have loud tire noise at 40 mph. The sound is like "whoom whoom whoom whoom whoom". The sound has probably been going on for about 10,000 miles now and it has been getting progressively worse. I can slightly "feel" the sound through the floor below the pedals. I rotate my tires every 5,000 miles on the dot (font to back, back to front).

What I've done to try to figure it out
I've taken it to 2 shops for a quick inspection (including the toyota dealer) and they both concluded that it is NOT the wheel bearings and is simply the tires. The dealer put it on the lift and felt the wheel play. No play. The offroad shop said "thats just how All terrain tires wear.."

One more note, when rotating the tires, I've noticed that in one particular rotation, it seems to be louder, however its noticeable on both rotations.

I also took it to the Americas Tires tire shop and they put each wheel on the balancer. They concluded that I have feathering and cupping. They even told me that one of my rims is slightly bent out of shape. (this rim happened to be the one that I had suspected was causing the sound - passenger side) I asked how this happened and he said it could happen when driving and hitting a bump or something. I explained this to the offroad shop and they think its B.S. - they said a rim will only bend on an accident or impact directly.

How do I go about fixing this problem without dropping 2 grand on new tires and new wheels? Is this just something I need to accept having All terrain tires?

 

that off road shop is retarded i've been a few rims hitting bumps. i was going fast lol that rim is probably your issue either that or your tires are worn out bad i have BFG AT/KO's 265/75/16 and no noise come from them at all

 

either that or get a loud exhaust lol

 

Are you rotating front to back only? I personally do not rotate tires in a way that will change the direction they've been going already. So, none of that X pattern for me. I just do a front to back only. The reason being tire separation. Is the sound a sort of dense slapping sound? Your tread could be separating from the core of the tire. If so, that could result in a blowout at speed.

 

FWIW, bent wheels can also stem from improper use of equipment when mounting the tires. Funny the tire shop didn't mention that one...

As far as the noise, some A/T tires do tend to get loud as they age. I've experienced that with several sets of tires, none of them BFG though.

 

So BFG AT TKO's ? if so, yes on road they are noise and become louder with a sound oscillation to them as you get near end of thread life.

 

How do I know what I've reached the end of life of my tires? They are bald right? Or is there different rules for AT tires?

Also, regarding the bent rim, does this mean that if I replace all my rims, that my tires should wear down and correct them selves over the next 5-10 k miles?

 

Do a google search of tire separation to see if you can compare what your seeing on your tires. The fact that it got worse after "one particular rotation" makes me think you should investigate that. better safe than sorry anyway.

 

Tires have wear bars between the treads, A/Ts are no different.

If tires start to wear unevenly, or cup, it can be difficult to correct. The bent wheel is a theory, not 100% the cause. Lots of A/T and M/T tires that are run for a lot of miles on pavement can develop cupping or feathering. It can be very hard to pinpoint the cause and even harder to correct once it's started (assuming regular tire rotation will not even them out). Also, if you only have 1 bent wheel, I'd only replace that one but get it verified that the wheel is actually bent before wasting your money fixing something that may not be broken.

 

+1, typically, once it starts to feather/cup, it's very unlikely that you can stop it. MT and AT tires do tend to get louder as they wear down. I only have about 12k miles on my BFG MT and I can definitely tell that it's getting louder on the highway.

I'm willing to bet that the noise you're referring to is coming from the feathering. Check and re-check all suspension components especially the front struts.

 

My tires are ungodly loud at exactly 40 MPH but they are aggressive off road tires (silly I know since I don't off road). Anything under 40 or over 45 and they are pretty quiet. They just hit the right frequency at 40 MPH. They have always howled but I knew they would when I bought them. They look damn good on my pavement princess though.

 

Depending on your driving, 43K miles may be getting near the end of your tire life. AT will be a little louder as it goes along, although that depends on the driver's tolerance. Drove BFG AT for 10 years on my last Tacoma. Some complain about noise, while I never noticed. If the rim is bent, pay to get it fixed if you like the current look. If not, buy new ones. Regardless, you are about to spend some money or live with the noise and hope it doesn't damage your truck.

 

Get a dial indicator and figure out how to mount it to your hub or whatever then spin the suspected bent wheel. And when you rotate, do front right to left rear and front left to right rear. Then rears straight forward.

 

If the tires are feathered they will get loud. And like has already been said once they start doing this it's next to impossible to get it to stop. I've run BFG AT's on a number of trucks (including 2 first gen tacomas) and never had a problem with this though. I've also had a set last 80k miles. They are great tires but you do have to rotate them and they aren't quiet. If you want quiet and smooth you bought the wrong tire.

 

Wheel bearing or alignment? Check inside compared to outside of the tire...