Hankook Optimo H727 - @35K miles sound terrible!

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xBa380

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When my dad needed new tires for his Prius he looked at me for recommendations. At the time, the H727's had stellar reviews for long life, quietness, etc... So I told him to go for them.

They were good for a while,but now only at 35K miles they sound worse than any tire I have ever heard. Treadlife is at 4/32, so they are getting close to replacement time as well. But the last few thousand miles it literally sounds like four bad wheel bearings. I never heard something so loud and obnoxious from worn tires.

My Falken 912's which I wore down to 3/32 were half the noise level of this tire. The prius also has much better noise isolation than my xB does.

Anybody else experience this same issue with this tire? With a 100K tread-life warranty as well, at only 35-40K needing replacement is quite a bit wild to me. I figured at least 55-60K from these.

I am using General Altimax HP's on my xB and are IMO, a much superior tire. In both traction and noise levels. I would not recommend the H727's after this experience with them.
 
Does the tread show uneven wear or cupping at all? My mom's car used to chew through tires and they'd cup resulting in very noisy ride; it ended up being excessive camber in the alignment.
 
When I did his brakes/rotation, I checked the tires carefully. No uneven wear, cupping, etc... Tread was at 4/32 at multiple spots across each tire.
 
My H727s still seem pretty quiet. I've got about 10k miles on them.

Are you sure you're familiar enough with tire wear to identify feathering/cupping or other issues? I'm not doubting you, but I think uneven wear is probably what causes a lot of additional noise as tires wear.
 
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The H727's were pretty quiet up until the last 5K or so and now they are almost unbearable on the freeway. Mostly with concrete roads. Not really loud at lower speeds, only freeway. Some roads worse than others, which is normal. But in general, they are really loud. My mom thought there was other issues and when I told her they were the tires she was pretty shocked.

As far as being able to identify tire issues, I generally know what tires are supposed to look like and all that. Visually, it looks like a perfectly wore tire. No inside/outside tire wear, no off looking tread, no other tire damage. Car drives straight, no vibrations, etc... Measured are various points from inside to the outside of tire to check for variance in tread depth and all was consistent.

Regardless, I will have him get an alignment before his next set of tires. My brother works at a Toyota dealership so he can just take it to work one day for him.
 
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The reviews on Tire Rack are opinions from people that may or may not have any car knowledge. Throw a away the euphoric "love my new tires!" 500 mile reviews. If the reviews weren't Prius, they don't apply either. So in reality your lucky if you get any long term reviews that match your car.

Check Tire Rack for the OE tires. They will likely work best.
 
Reminds me on my last tires on my work RAV. I had Michelin LTX which has nice reviews, but when they got not even close to half worn, they howled like I had mud tires on. No cupping etc., and had a tire guy that didn't believe me. So, he went with me on a ride. Couldn't believe it he says. So much tread and no apparent odd wear pattern. So we replaced them with different tires. Maybe they just weren't for my my SUV and year, but seems others don't have the same problem, and know others that got good service from the same tire. I'm still a Michelin fan, just these didn't work out for this SUV. I would have swore they were cupped bad, but just didn't see it.
 
Do not align the car BEFORE getting new tires, get it aligned when the new tires are mounted. For some reason I have seen several Toyota Prius cars with really chopped up torn up tires. Not sure if they are that hard on tires? IIRC the rears were usually in pretty bad shape on the cars I had worked on. The key to tire wear is regular rotations and making sure the tire pressures are correct.
 
There are issues with certain model years of the Prius cupping/wearing tires out prematurely. Yours might be one of the unlucky ones.

Mine was going on 40k on the original Goodyear Integritys (which still had decent tread), so maybe I got lucky.
 
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Its most likely the car has worn the tires unevenly. No reason for it to howl unless it has some kind of wear issue.

Try removing the wheel and looking it over off the car

run your hand back and forth on the inside and outside tread blocks. You can feel much better than see certain types of wear.
 
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I've got 10,000 hard miles on my h727's with some extra camber wear and they still grab hard when I drop the clutch at 6k or go on some spirited lake road driving, with no excessive noise on the freeway or highway really.
 
Tires rotated every 6K miles or so. Each time I inspect the tires carefully when they are off the car.

Tire pressures are correct, I check those routinely. Front and rear tire tread depth is virtually identical.

I will take another look, but I think it is a good idea to get the dealer to check out the alignment anyway.

The car is a 2008 model year. It currently has 70K miles on it.
 
I had Pirelli P4s go out early on me. A lot of people like those too. I got about 50k out of them. No uneven wear, they were just worn. Regularly rotated the whole time.

The 727 seems to have a decent following. Someone mentioned the 500 mile Tire Rack reviews, well I dig deeper than that and try and find long term reviews from owners of similar cars to mine. For example, I noticed wit the GY Assurance that owners of larger, heavier cars were much happier on TR than owners of other Civics, Corollas, and subcompacts. Crossed those off. Before I bough the P4 I scoured those reviews for that kind of information. I did the same before I replaced the P4s with Michelin Harmonys. The 727 was in the running, but in the end the Harmony reviews were also good and Michelin served me well on the set before the P4.
 
The Prius is well known to be very hard on tires.

The last set of tires on my Prius were Firestone Affinity. Despite the treadwear rating of 560 and several rotations they only lasted 37,000 km (23,000 miles) to get down to the wear bars. I have heard that the Prius is hard on tires but this is the worst tire life I have experienced in the past 15 years.

I haven't had the alignment checked but this thread reminded me that I should get it checked ASAP.
 
The Prius runs -1.5 deg of camber in the rear.

The Gen III utilizes similar alignment settings but does not seem to chew up tires nearly as quickly.

For a Prius or most hybrids, you should stay with a LRR tire only for optimal performance. Michelin Energy Saver A/S, Bridgestone Ecopia EP422 and Continental ProContact EcoPlus are good choices.
 
I'm in Cleveland also. Maybe the tire place your dad bought them from can prorate the tires since the tire warranty on them is 100k miles. Where did you buy the tires from if I may ask? I need tires myself on my 05 Matrix.
 
I really liked them! They were the best tires in rain I had ever used. I used to drive through deep standing water without feeling it at all. Sidewall was stiffer and cornering was excellent. Was a very quiet tire up until it wore down below 5/32 or so and it got quite loud. I replaced them at 3/32 with the Generals. So far, I think I prefer the Generals. They are even more quiet without sacrificing the cornering with the additional pressure you can put into them (44psi max vs. 51psi).

I liked them both though. The falken's did wear pretty quick and lasted me something like 28,000 miles. Never used in the snow.

Satinsilver, I generally buy all my tires from Tire-Rack or Discount Tire and get them mounted somewhere local.
 
Originally Posted By: mva
The Prius is well known to be very hard on tires.

The last set of tires on my Prius were Firestone Affinity. Despite the treadwear rating of 560 and several rotations they only lasted 37,000 km (23,000 miles) to get down to the wear bars. I have heard that the Prius is hard on tires but this is the worst tire life I have experienced in the past 15 years.

I haven't had the alignment checked but this thread reminded me that I should get it checked ASAP.


Isn't the Prius just a porky car on undersized glazed-donut rubber? The secretary where I work is about to get her third set of tires...she has ~65,000 miles. OE (GY Integrity) went ~35K, replacements (Michelins) are showing wear bars at 30K.
 
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