Rock warrior scrunching noise

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TTO5

TTO5

10 Year 15 Year
Joined
Oct 26, 2010
Threads
139
Messages
932
2010 lx570
Seventeen inch rock warriors
Anyone here a scrunching noise can hear it slow speeds , but probably still there at high speed and slows down with the speed of the vehicle i'm thinking it's something with the rock ring and the bead of the tire
 
I had a weird similar noise coming from my RW wheels, with BFG KO2's, drove me nuts. Yes only slow speeds. I tried everything, removed the rings and caps, checked the weights, even checked the wheel bearings. I even had my local indy shop try to find it when I needed a sticker one year, nada. Never figured it out. Went away when I swapped tires to Michelins. No idea what caused it.
 
KLF said:
I had a weird similar noise coming from my RW wheels, with BFG KO2's, drove me nuts. Yes only slow speeds. I tried everything, removed the rings and caps, checked the weights, even checked the wheel bearings. I even had my local indy shop try to find it when I needed a sticker one year, nada. Never figured it out. Went away when I swapped tires to Michelins. No idea what caused it.
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Hmm. I am running yokohama geolandar at maybe has the same issue as the bfg.
 
It really did drive me crazy, like I was almost sure I had a cracked rim somewhere. Wouldn't do it up on the lift in Drive.

But now I'm also wondering, I had all the TPMS sensors replaced at the same time, from metal stems to rubber ones. Maybe??
 
These are known to crack. Give them a very close look along the inner bead.. crack may only be 1/8” long.
 
TTO5 said:
I am assuming the Crack is not good? Safety concerns?
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Correct, not good. They'll usually start losing air before they get bad enough to fail mechanically, but even that is a safety concern depending on the status of your TPMS system.

I seem to remember reading it is a risk with forged wheels.. something about the metallurgy makes them more prone to it than cast wheels. The one cracked RW I've personally seen started with a small dent in the inner bead, less than 1/32", but right in the center of that nice round little dent was a crack that started moving down into the bead.
 
I just rolled the truck in neutral and the noise is constant meaning its not just when one particular section of the tire make contact with the ground. Pretty much makes the noise as long as you are rolling the tire along. I am thinking no Crack as I would imagine that would only make the noise when the cracked area of the wheel contacts the ground. I think ill pull the ring and see what happens.
 
TTO5 said:
I just rolled the truck in neutral and the noise is constant meaning its not just when one particular section of the tire make contact with the ground. Pretty much makes the noise as long as you are rolling the tire along. I am thinking no Crack as I would imagine that would only make the noise when the cracked area of the wheel contacts the ground. I think ill pull the ring and see what happens.
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Is the noise coming from a certain area all all 4 corners?
 
In my case, if I slowly moved forward and swerved back and forth, the noise went away. Only happened when going straight.

Like I said, noise disappeared when I swapped tires and TPMS sensors 2 years ago. Still have the RW installed, rings installed - no noise.
 
Usually stuff like this is a rock stuck in between the dust shield and rotor, or trapped between the rotor and wheel barrel.

Best way to check would be doing a driveway tire rotation.
 
TTO5 said:
If I Turn to the right.It goes away once I go straight, or turn left.I can hear it again
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I would move the wheel to the other side and see if the noise follows it or not. If the noise doesn't follow, it's probably something else.
 
Ok have some updates. I pulled the bead ring off, noise still there, pulled center cap off noise still there. Moved tire to driver front , noise followed the tire to driver front, passenger front now quiet. I will say I didn't notice the noise when the tire was cool like sitting overnight. Once I drove it later in the day I noticed it as it was heated up by the sun. I have stick on weights and 1 bead weight (on the inside of course). Both are solid with no movement. Here's a video taken this morning.

 
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TTO5 said:
Ok have some updates. I pulled the bead ring off, noise still there, pulled center cap off noise still there. Moved tire to driver front , noise followed the tire to driver front, passenger front now quiet. I will say I didn't notice the noise when the tire was cool like sitting overnight. Once I drove it later in the day I noticed it as it was heated up by the sun. I have stick on weights and 1 bead weight (on the inside of course). Both are solid with no movement. Here's a video taken this morning.

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I'm leaning toward a problem with the tire and not the wheel, but how to test?

If it were me, I'd bump the tire pressure up a lot - something near the max inflation pressure shown on the tire sidewall - and see if the low speed scrunching noise goes away. If it does, it points to a possible internal belt failure/delamination in the construction of the tire. The solution would be to replace the tire.

Since the test is easy, maybe worth a try?

HTH
 
gaijin said:
I'm leaning toward a problem with the tire and not the wheel, but how to test?

If it were me, I'd bump the tire pressure up a lot - something near the max inflation pressure shown on the tire sidewall - and see if the low speed scrunching noise goes away. If it does, it points to a possible internal belt failure/delamination in the construction of the tire. The solution would be to replace the tire.

Since the test is easy, maybe worth a try?

HTH
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I am thinking the same thing. I will report back after trying that
 
I've got the exact same thing going on with mine, never have figured it out, been almost 2 years now and only recently stopped hearing it after a rotation sent it to the rear. I always figured it was the rock rings, but after the issues removing them the first time, I decided to just deal with the "squishing" noise.

Gaijin makes a good point as I've also had issue keeping them balanced for an extended period of time, haven't kept track of which one is the culprit, but I did always assume it could be construction related. So far, its just been a minor annoyance and I've yet to search out a shop to rebalance other than the "free" session waiting at Discount Tire and they're not known for being the best with large tire balancing
 
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