C30 Roaring Tires Road Noise

[C30Newbie]

Greetings from the Los Angeles area ! Please forgive me if this has already been discussed to the point of getting an answer to these questions, but I didn't find a clear answer yet. Sorry if this post is long, but I want to provide as much as I know to anyone who can assist me..

1) Who is this guy?
I'm not a "performance" junkie, track guy, modder, slammer, canyon carver, or street racer. Just an old airplane pilot who likes Volvos, because our second wagon took a 30MPH head-on hit from a drunk driver without serious injury to my wife or me... I'm a believer I'm a three-time V70 non-turbo Wagon owner, and just bought a cheap-ish 2011 'face lift' C30 (not an R) with 158K miles.

2) What is his problem?
The road noise from the tires was absolutely horrendous. Noise was 100% speed related, not related to RPM, gear, or engine load/power. At 55MPH it sounded like one of those jacked up 4x4's with the deep knob mud tires.

It looks like the car had been lowered, and it has visible negative camber. A Google search has made it clear that lowering these cars usually results in camber problems, accelerated tire wear, "cupping" and noisy tires. But guess what??? I have no great need or interest in a lowered C30. We have speed bumps and potholes and crappy roads here that would take all the fun out of a lowered car anyway.

So I asked a tire shop and an alignment shop. They both said the noise was probably because the tires were trashed due to the camber. The tire shop offered to sell me tires which would quiet the car down immediately... until the camber trashed the new tires and they started making noise. The alignment shop said it looks lowered, and if I wanted the car to be quiet to go buy stock height OEM springs and shocks, and they'd install them, and then align the car back to stock specs.

So I figured that putting on a set of used tires in the back (where we had felt the cupping, and the camber looked worse) would eliminate half of the noise, and buy me some time while I looked for a used set of OEM springs. Sure enough, they removed both rear tires and they were absolutely trashed on the inside edge of the treads. "cupping" and wavy surface is an understatement!

The front tires were in really good shape, no visible cupping or uneven wear. So I made an assumption that the noise had to be coming from the from the rear tire destruction, and a set of used tires on the back would quiet the car down.

But when I drove out of the tire place, about half of the road noise was still there. Same type and tone of sound as before, just not as lout at a given speed..... but still loud enough to be distracting and un-Volvo-like compared to my V70.

3) What is his question?
My primary question for this forum is this: Is negative camber (from lowering the car) by itself enough to cause this much noise? With four decent condition, un-damaged used tires now on the car, can I expect the C30 to finally become quiet by spending the money putting stock height springs back on it?

My secondary question is: "Lowering" a C30 takes out less than 2 inches of ride height..... can I leave the "lowered" shocks in with the stock springs, or do I really have to pony up the money for new shocks when I go back to the stock springs?

Thank you folks for any experience, insight, and answers you can provide.

Bill in Los Angeles

[BlackBart]

Welcome! I loved your modder slammer list! (I think those make up the bulk of many forums!)

Excessive neg camber can ruin a tire in no time. My son’s mildly lowered old BMW coupe ruined a set of snow tires on a 1200 mile fully loaded trip. We welded on adjustment tabs to fix the rear camber.

Badly cupped and uneven tires will make a lot of noise, yes.

I’ll bet there are good condition, non-rusted, stock springs in SoCal salvage yards. Not that hard to swap in. You could check the numbers on the current struts to see if they’re a special short version. At 2011, maybe it’s ready for a set of OE shocks/struts anyway, which would solve that issue.

[Krons]

Some will disagree with aftermarket shocks but I’ve had decent results with TRQ loaded struts on a couple Volvos. Easy enough to swap on a C30, I did it on a C70.

Tire noise depends a lot on the make and model of tire…so one of those your miles will vary things.

[volvolugnut]

If you decide to replace the springs or shocks yourself, use sturdy spring compressors and be safe. Compressed springs store a lot of energy and can badly injure anyone nearby.
You might find good, recently replaced used shocks on a wrecked car in the salvage yards.
volvolugnut

[C30Newbie]

So, today I went to an alignment shop that was recommended by a very good friend and experienced car/airplane mechanic.

The owner of the shop verified that yes indeed this car had been lowered on all four corners, using aftermarket lowering springs. There were Bilstein shocks on the rear and two different struts on the front (one stock Volvo, one Bilstein). There was also an aftermarket sway bar on the rear. Unfortunately, the previous owner had not installed the aftermarket adjustable control arms on the rear suspension.

The alignment shop owner drove the car and to my surprise he came back saying he strongly suspected a bad wheel bearing is causing the majority of the roaring noise, not the tires. So the car went up on the lift, and sure enough, we could tilt the front left wheel through several degrees of camber, and spinning the wheel by hand made 'bad bearing' noise. The front right bearing was not nearly as bad, but not great either.

So it was an easy decision to commit to having him install new front bearing/hub assemblies. The appointment for this is Wednesday. This job is far far FAR more expensive than I had imagined, but he will be using high quality bearing hubs, and I know it will be done correctly.

This will allow me to drive the car more or less normally, without the roaring noise, but still with faster wear on the tires (until I address the negative camber issue). Hopefully I will be able to start enjoying ownership and driving this car, and start saving up my pennies for eventually dealing with the camber and ride height.

[MoVolvos]

So, today I went to an alignment shop that was recommended by a very good friend and experienced car/airplane mechanic.

The owner of the shop verified that yes indeed this car had been lowered on all four corners, using aftermarket lowering springs. There were Bilstein shocks on the rear and two different struts on the front (one stock Volvo, one Bilstein). There was also an aftermarket sway bar on the rear. Unfortunately, the previous owner had not installed the aftermarket adjustable control arms on the rear suspension.

The alignment shop owner drove the car and to my surprise he came back saying he strongly suspected a bad wheel bearing is causing the majority of the roaring noise, not the tires. So the car went up on the lift, and sure enough, we could tilt the front left wheel through several degrees of camber, and spinning the wheel by hand made 'bad bearing' noise. The front right bearing was not nearly as bad, but not great either.

So it was an easy decision to commit to having him install new front bearing/hub assemblies. The appointment for this is Wednesday. This job is far far FAR more expensive than I had imagined, but he will be using high quality bearing hubs, and I know it will be done correctly.

This will allow me to drive the car more or less normally, without the roaring noise, but still with faster wear on the tires (until I address the negative camber issue). Hopefully I will be able to start enjoying ownership and driving this car, and start saving up my pennies for eventually dealing with the camber and ride height.

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Having owned our 08 C30 for, just checked it's 6 years and doing all the work ourselves, may I suggest having the rear adjustable camber arms installed now in order to eliminate camber wear on the rear tires. Our car when purchased had heavy cupping, inner edge wear and tire noise from the wear. A set of Bilstein in the rear and replacing all 4 tires the car was quiet.

Soon after I installed the 1AAuto rear adjustable camber arm kit. After 25K miles 5 years on a set of Michellins they were still evenly worn when replaced. Best to take care of this now with your mechanic so you don't have to change the rear springs as he will have to do another alignment if and when you can find the springs you want. Meanwhile the rear tires will wear unevenly if left alone.
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2008 Volvo C30 Rear Driver & Passenger Side Upper & Lower 4 Piece Control Arm Set TRQ PSA62119
https://www.1aauto.com/ford-mazda-volvo ... 07765/2008
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[precisionguesswork]

You'll want to get some adjustable rear upper camber arms. SPC is pretty standard in this department. You can get them at several places including FCP euro. Factory rear camber is already leaning toward excessive.

[BlackBart]

precision guesswork is a brilliant name.

[C30Newbie]

So it was indeed the front wheel bearing hubs that were making all that horrendous noise. Had a good quality suspension/alignment shop positively identify the issue, and order/replace the bearing hubs. I'm rather unhappy with the total parts and labor cost (over a grand), but the car drives normally and I'm enjoying it a lot more.

This of course still leaves the camber/lowering issue for me to deal with, since I don't really need the improved cornering that comes from the negative camber. I'm looking into several options, from going back to stock springs, to adjustable control arms, to the cheapskate rubber spring extender blocks.

I'm also cleaning up the broken front plastic grille that was missing a chunk of plastic. I managed to cut, grind, saw, and sand the black plastic away, leaving just the "chrome" surround and the mounting tabs. Now I'm looking for a piece of appropriate wire mesh screen to make one of those cool replacement grille inserts, and I may very well get a chrome prancing moose to replace the OWM Volvo badge!

[MoVolvos]

So it was indeed the front wheel bearing hubs that were making all that horrendous noise. Had a good quality suspension/alignment shop positively identify the issue, and order/replace the bearing hubs. I'm rather unhappy with the total parts and labor cost (over a grand), but the car drives normally and I'm enjoying it a lot more.

This of course still leaves the camber/lowering issue for me to deal with, since I don't really need the improved cornering that comes from the negative camber. I'm looking into several options, from going back to stock springs, to adjustable control arms, to the cheapskate rubber spring extender blocks.

I'm also cleaning up the broken front plastic grille that was missing a chunk of plastic. I managed to cut, grind, saw, and sand the black plastic away, leaving just the "chrome" surround and the mounting tabs. Now I'm looking for a piece of appropriate wire mesh screen to make one of those cool replacement grille inserts, and I may very well get a chrome prancing moose to replace the OWM Volvo badge!

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Even with stock springs the C30 is prone to and will neg camber. If you don't mind the rear height just add the adjustable camber arm or you should do both the springs and adjustable camber arms.
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