Road noise

[WhiteRanger]

Sup everyone,
my mom recently bought a 2000 impreza wagon 2.2 awd. We like the car except that it seems to have an unreal amount of roadnoise coming from the back. The back brakes are not dragging, i checked them yesterday. I plan in changing the rear differential oil today. Im just curious is this is normal with the 2.2 model, i figured since its the bottom of the line model that subaru prolly cheaped out on sound dampening material. Any input welcome! thanks

[freakray]

Hmmm...good question.

I have found that with the parcel tray removed there is more road noise evident from the rear, but I don't know that I would call it excessive.

Keep in mind that the bulk of road noise is the noise of tyres on the road, check out the tyres and see what they are, more agressive all-weather tyres tend to produce more road noise than a performance type summer tyre (if you know what I am getting at).

You shouldn't need to change the diff oil unless something is really wrong, a diff will only really become noisy if the oil is low (leaking) or there is excessive wear on the pinions and spider.

Ray

[WhiteRanger]

The car still has the stock potenzas on it, it has less than 17k miles. It is rediculously loud, to the point where ya gotta cut the radio way up over the road noise. ive even taken the rear brakes apart to make sure they werent dragging. its really irritating to the point where we are about to spend alot of money putting dynamat in it or something

[freakray]

The stock Potenza's should no be excessively loud.

Did you check wheel bearings?

[WhiteRanger]

I havent checked the wheel bearings, but the car has like 17k miles on them, i cant imagine they would be going bad already. The car's warranty has just expired. I guess it will be hte next thing i will check, and i will probably go ahead and repack them. thanks

[Viking067]

Hi, my Sti are making a loud kinda howling noise when i reach 125mph/200kmh.It comes from the low right side of the car and are really annoying.(Not that i drive so fast often, but still annoying).I have the potenzas on and think thats the problem.

[WhiteRanger]

It turns out that hte noise was the rear right wheel bearing. aparently there are two rings of ball-bearings and one of the rings had just came apart and was putting alot of pressure on the other ring. subaru has aparently had problems with them because the replacement bearings had been changed to roller style bearings. thanks for everyones help!