Car is bit loud, advice please

[the_nurse46]

Hello all,
I purchased a ford focus zetec s a few months ago from a dealership with 13k miles. The first owner had taken off the original 16" alloys and put st focus alloys on the car which are 18". I have checked with ford and my owners manuals and these wheels are fine to fit on my car so no issues there.

Once the car gets to about 60mph I notice (but not my wife, she thinks I can hear things!) a loud humming which seems to come from the rear of the car.

I have checked the tyres and they are some cheap rubbish that I will replace ASAP but would the noise be the tyres as they are rubbish or something wrong with the wheels (to big for car)?

This may seem stupid question but I'm not as good with cars as bikes!!

[Speed addicted]

Could just be the tread pattern on the tyres, changing to winter tyres on my car made a difference in road noise.

The size of the wheels shouldn't matter.

As far as I can tell women are impervious to noises in cars.

[chris182]

Check your rear wheel bearings. My car started doing the same thing (loud humming noise over a certain speed) after it was rather overloaded on a roadtrip due to unforeseen circumstances. When I changed the rear wheel bearings in the course of changing the rear discs the noise went away completely so I think they were shot.