Hi again,
We have a (new to us) 2009 Mazda 5 automatic that has well worn summer tires (even wear) and I find there is excessive rear road noise at 70kms/hr but noticable from 30km/hr up to 110 km/hr.
I sat in the back while my wife drove and it did not seem to be coming from a specific side but the rear axle area in general. Sounds like a hard tire (wub,wub,wub) and more noticeable on different pave surfaces.
We have not driven any other mazda 5 so we don't have a referance but was wondering if anyone has a comment on this?
My experience with wheel berring problems is that it is usually specific to one side so is this just a bad design (no wheel well insulation) or is there another problem I should be looking for?
Thanks in advance.

 

Hey dancecar... we have an 08 model and I noticed the same noise your referring to. The first thing I said to my wife when I noticed it was that we had a tire going bad. I said that to say this... Mazda has the rear tires set up with negative camber (probably more than needs to be), the tires will wear more on the inside than the outside. In my case the rear tires were wearing fairly evenly but over time the inside was going which created the wub wub sound (falken ziex ze 912). Bought new tires had the alignment done and no more wub wub. The camber is not adjustable but the toe is, either way ask to see the read out from the alignment before you authorize the work just to see if the camber angles are the same left to right... hope this helps

 

Thanks lnwlf,
we just replaced the tires, the inside edge was worn more that we realized and now with the new tires the road noise has disappeared.
Hard to belive tires would make that loud of a road sound.
We are happy that there was nothing wrong with the back end.
Good info, Thanks

 

good to hear but keep in mind that the tires will continue to wear on the inside. there is an adjustable camber link available which can be used to take some of the negative camber out of the rear tires, SPC is the company that makes them...

Specialty Products Company - SPC Alignment

just a thought...