CLS Droning Noise Cured!!

[Voltman]

One happy chappy today. Been plaqued with a droning noise at low speeds but never been able to cure it. Have been into main dealers umpteem times & all they say is its normal for the CLS to make this noise! Never been happy with the noise!! A good friend of mine has just purchased a used CLS, same age nearly as mine with no noise. Lo & behold he has Michelins & mine are Pirelli's so spent the afternoon swapping wheels & no noise at all with his wheels, super quite compared to mine. The big difference was when we just swapped the fronts. I could live with the Pirrelli's on the rear but as they are about 2/3rds warn I'm going to replace them all with Michelin's & go for the very quite option. Never thought different tyre makes would make such a difference. As a note the car came with Dunlops, then when needed changing went for Perelli's as recomended by Main dealers. I will now only have Michelins!!

 

[steve333]

The nonsense dealers will try to fob us of with,i have pirellis allround on my cls & they do produce a fair bit of road noise,when the time comes i think i will try michelins on the front(just replaced the rears with pirelli's).

 

[Dieselman]

How worn are the Michelins? Tyres always make more noise as they wear down.

 

[evdok]

stick to whatever came with the car when new.

 

[Benzster]

One happy chappy today. Been plaqued with a droning noise at low speeds but never been able to cure it. Have been into main dealers umpteem times & all they say is its normal for the CLS to make this noise! Never been happy with the noise!! A good friend of mine has just purchased a used CLS, same age nearly as mine with no noise. Lo & behold he has Michelins & mine are Pirelli's so spent the afternoon swapping wheels & no noise at all with his wheels, super quite compared to mine. The big difference was when we just swapped the fronts. I could live with the Pirrelli's on the rear but as they are about 2/3rds warn I'm going to replace them all with Michelin's & go for the very quite option. Never thought different tyre makes would make such a difference. As a note the car came with Dunlops, then when needed changing went for Perelli's as recomended by Main dealers. I will now only have Michelins!!

They're more expensive maybe. I always thought them the quietest and best. Glad ro know someone agrees.

 

[Voltman]

How worn are the Michelins? Tyres always make more noise as they wear down.

The Michelins that I tried had plenty of tread on them, they have only done 5k miles. My front Pirellis have plenty of tread, only 8months old, backs are a lot more worn. Going to shop for new tyres later, I've seen a few adverts if you buy 4 tyres you get 30% off. Are there any members on here who sell tyres near me who could quote me. In the past I've just let the dealer replace as needed when in for a service. I now realise how much over the odds I've been paying!

Is there anyone on here who can explain why the Pirelli's make so much noise. The sound was so much worse on smooth roads, really thought I'd got a serious problem. I have Pirelli's on my wifes car & no problems!

 

[jaymanek]

Do you have run flats? Pirelli Mercedes Spec (MO) run flats are a lot harder than average and you probably have very low profile tyres on the CLS making the noise worse. .

I have Pirelli P Zero Rosso on a couple of my cars and no complaints.

 

[Voltman]

Do you have run flats? Pirelli Mercedes Spec (MO) run flats are a lot harder than average and you probably have very low profile tyres on the CLS making the noise worse. .

I have Pirelli P Zero Rosso on a couple of my cars and no complaints.

Just had a look and they are Pirelli P Zero 245/40/R18 97Y MO on front. Nobody mention anything about run flats when Mercedes fitted them. A few of my mates have Pirellis on their cars with no problem & as I said before my wifes Ford has them with no problems. When I tried the Michelins, they were so quite with very little road noise let alone any droning noise. Very strange though that they were only noisy at slow speeds & especially on smooth roads.

 

[Deleted member 37751]

Check out 'Camskill' for your new tyres, they're generally the cheapest.

 

[DRBC43AMG]

Never heard MO being linked to run flats, MO meaning Mercedes Original (factory mounted tyres). I have Michelins on my c43 and no problems. Had Pirelli PZero rosso in the past but found they tramlined like crazy when wearing out making the car very jitty and rather noisy.

 

[jaymanek]

i wasnt linking the MO to runflats, just saying MO pirelli runflats are a hard tyre,

 

[1959terry]

Its great to know that you have found the cause as it has also been driving me crazy. Mine is currently on Goodyear however I will now vchange to Michelin. Can you confirm what type of Michelin tyres you tried?

 

[Egbert Nobacon]

As well as changing the tyres, get the geometry/alignment checked.

I had an identical issue on a BMW. Incessant droning noise that I thought was failing front wheel bearings. Tyres were 2/3 worn Continentals.

The BMW dealer tech inspected and drove it and said "tyres". To prove it they swapped the front wheels with a pair from a stock vehicle and we did back to back road tests. Sure enough, no noise on the other set.

What caused the noise was a barely visible difference in wear rate across the width of the tyre from the outer to the inner side (the inner being more worn) and the resultant tread presentation to the road surface. The greater wear on the tyres the greater the noise.

A four wheel alignment and new Continentals solved the problem and it never returned even when the replacements were (eventually) worn to the legal limit.

 

[Voltman]

Its great to know that you have found the cause as it has also been driving me crazy. Mine is currently on Goodyear however I will now vchange to Michelin. Can you confirm what type of Michelin tyres you tried?

MICHELIN PILOT SPORT 3, hope this helps.

 

[Voltman]

All fitted today, wonderful, very quite, didn't think changing tyres could make such a difference. Very happy chappy now.

 

[markjay]

AFAIK, MO runflats are called 'MO Extended'.