I have a set of 4 wheels from bridgestone (dont know the dimensions) but the tires are 245/40/ R18, and they are installed on a 07 camry le. the problem is that the tires make a really loud noise when driver over 50 mph, and it only happened to show up after driving the car for 5,000 miles. I went toa toyota service center to have it checked out, and they say it is because the tires are wearing out more on one side of the tire than the other (they said it was chopped up tires) so my solution is to change those tires that are chopped up.

These tires don't come cheap, an average brand tire is about $180 each, and I don't want to change them once every 6 months. Is there any other way to solve this problem by buying 4 new wheels that are less in width? if not, then what kind of wheels(dimensions) can I install on the camry and eliminate this problem?

The noise is driving me crazy, some one please help!!!!

 

That noise you hear by any chance a very low/mid. pitch humming sound? and what tires are you exactly using? - on an 2007 camry- im thinking you can do a 225/50.18 or 235/45.18

the noise could possibly comming from a unidirectional tire pattern that cuts into the air and the extra air space under the fenders amplifies the sounds. just a guess?

 

What kind of tires??
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Also rim size 18x7.5 or 18x8 ????
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it is sort of a low/mid humming sound, and you are right aboutthey are unidirectional tires. I used my hands and touched the inner part of the 2 tires in front that's making the noise. whenIrub into the direction of the tire I can feel that the inner side of the tread is similar to the feel of walking down on stairs. and when I rub against the direction of the tires, it felt like the tread is constanly adjusting the height and sort of like going up on stairs (my description of the tire is very unclear, that you have to excuse me). and this is only on the inner side of the 2 tiresrather than the outer side.the guy from the toyota place told me thatit is because the weight is mostly put on to the inner side. he recommends alignment and replacement of those 2 tires.

I need to know whether alignment will adjust the weight to be put onto the middle of the tires, or if that is only a short fix for my noise problem. I don't want to spend money on this only to find out that it doesn't solve my problems. And I want to consider everything before Igo withmy final approach which is buying 4 new wheels.

 

the tires are nankang NS-2 245/40 R18 97H BSW

 

You can minimize how much of the irregular wear occurs to one tire by rotating them more often. If it takes 5K miles for the noise/wear to show up, rotate them every 3000 miles.

J

 

the thing is, i want to fix the problem, I don't want to rotate the tires every 3 months and then replace them every 6 months

 

if ur not lowered an alignment should fix just about everything, although due to the widness of the tire and possibly the offset of the rims you're running, you'll probably still experience negative camber causing excessive wear on the inside. also with wider tires comes more road noise due to the fact there is more contact with air and road.
maybe if you had an alignment and adjusted it to have slightly positive camber it would help alleviate the problem.

 

That sounds reasonable, so I need to tell a mechanics to raise an alignment and adjust it to have slightly positive camber?