Humming noise (like faulty bearing?) at certain speed

[betonos]

Hi,

I've recently observed a pulsating, humming noise coming from rear side of the car. The noise changes pitch with speed, it manifests itself when approaching 50km/h and then peaks at 50 and as you go faster it fades away again. I can't feel any vibrations on the car nor on the steering wheel, but since it's coming from rear side I assume it might be related to rear wheel bearings for example. It doesn't matter If I accelerate, deccelerate or keep the speed. It's not that loud, you have to turn down audio to hear it. The car has a little above 6kkm on the odo.

I'm probably gonna get it checked in service. Hopefuly it's a simple thing such as wheel bearing, not some engine related problems.

[Wee Peem]

I get that when my wife travels in the back. Sorry Dear!

[londiniumperson]

Is one of the windows slightly open?

[EEEE]

I'd say its unlikely to be the wheel bearing. Normally the sound changes a little with load (cornering etc). Have you owned the car since new?

It be more inclined to suspect the tyre. What is the car history? If the car sat around for a long time the tyres could be slightly deformed?

Worth checking the windows as mentioned in case the rear doors do not get used much.

I only get slight whirring (from the motor high RPM) when I approach the maximum speed.

[betonos]

I bought the car as dealer demo (with 1.6kkm on the odo) but observed the phenomenon only recently (with 6+kkm on the odo).

It doesn’t happen all the time. So far from my observations it starts to manifest itself only after the car warms up a bit by driving. I mean, I couldn’t hear it during first 5km or so of (city) driving, only after certain time/distance it started manifesting. I have not made any longer distances than 10-20km recently, so need to observe it more. The „happens after some distance driven” part worries me a bit, as I believe wheel bearing would be audible from the very start of the vehicle. It’s not very loud, but if you turn off audio you can hear it pretty well. and the pulsation/pitch changes with speed, so I’m almost certain this is related to the wheels/drivetrain/engine rotations. And I’m 100% certain it’s the rear part of the vehicle.

The windows have nothing to do with it, I’ve tried opening/closing windows when hearing this and In my opinion the loudnes was very similar with open/closed windows. This again would probably counter the wheel bearing theory, as wheel should be more audible with windows open.

[betonos]

I believe we can now close the case: after changing tires to summer tires the problem is gone. I was driving on winter tires when this happened and the weather was on the plus side - perhaps +10 or something. I believe, different tire tread and temperature caused some interference sounds and hence the audible humming at certain speeds.

[EEEE]

Glad to hear you got it sorted. Very unlikely for a wheel bearing to go at almost new, and especially if the sound didn't change on cornering.

[milligoon]

I have always found winter tyres noisier, it's down to the sipes.