All tires get noisier as they age…

 

I only had a few years' driving experience with the old bias-ply tires from the 1960s, before radials took over the market, but, in general, I don't remember that to be the case with the bias-plies. Radials introduced a whole new way of doing both sidewalls and tread-patterns.

 

You were also driving cars that were BOF and more detached from the tires. It’s physics, tire noise is created by air trapped between the tread and the road. Modern tread design manages noise better than older designs, but as tread wears the precision of those tread designs are lost, which increases noise.

 

I learned to drive on (and logged many miles on) unibody Plymouth Valiants and Barracudas. I drove them before I had my big Buick in college. Remember, Chrysler products, back then, were all unibody except for the Imperial. GM and Ford had a few unibodies, but most of them were BOF.

Modern radial tires also, because of the way that the tread-pattern curves down part of the sidewall of the tire, tend to feather in one direction. You can feel it if you run your hand back and forth across the top of the tread. That feathering can cause noise.

But, to be honest, part of the noise problem today is not in the tires themselves, but the porous, grainy road-surfaces used to try and keep water from making tires hydroplane and lose traction. As roads are repaved, the number of quiet, glass-smooth road surfaces gets lower and lower each year.

 

I mean, you have no basis for anything you are saying…let’s just keep making stuff up. The curvature of the tires edge you mentioned is designed to reduce noise and maintain contact patch when turning.

Any argument that old bias ply tires were better than modern radial tires is just absurd.

 

Once again, I never said that they were better. I said, correctly, that the construction and tread-pattern on the old bias-ply tires made them different from radials in how they generated noise, particularly with mileage build-up. And I am in position to say that, because I have several year's experience driving on bias-plies.

That is true when the tires are new, but noise tends to increase as they age.

 

I think your memory from 60 years ago is failing you...no way tires 60 years ago made less noise than today.

 

Thank You, but I'll be the judge of that. You weren't even around in the 1960s.

 

You said people lose coins in the tracks of their sunroofs too lol. Lets drop it.

 

I don't even understand how you could properly judge tires from the 60s being quieter than today's tires, even if it was true. Interior isolation of all noise is so much better in cars today than it was in the 60s (or 80s or 90s or 2000s), even tires that were, in fact, quieter, would seem noisier because you would just inherently hear more noise inside the car's cabin in 60s autos.

 

I never made a blanket statement. I said it depended on several factors.

Anyhow, I am dropping the subject with Steve, and I will with you too. He probably never drove with those tires, and chances are you didn't, either, although you can correct me if I'm wrong, and you did.