Rear wheel noise

[Stormforce survival]

My 1999 1.8 Xi has an annoying noise coming from the rear wheels. Had the diff and wheel bearings checked and have been told they're ok. It's been suggested that a common Freelander problem is that the tyres suffer from uneven wear - with the inner edge becoming raised above the rest of the tread.

Looking at the tyre it does look slightly mis-shapen but is this likely to be the cause??

[Marc1187]

This uneven tyre wear can cause a noise from the rear, i drove one recently that was really bad and distractingly noisey due to the tyres being so badly out of shape. The tyre blocks will feel like they step down to each other rather than being level, hence them being called stepped or feathered tyres. Quite common on the older freelanders.

[Blippie]

You could try swapping the tyres round and seeing if itmakes a difference...

Cheers

Blippie

[Dorsetfreelander]

this was a common problem with the earlier freelanders before BMW got involved and I had exactly the same with my X reg 1.8 model, it's caused by the different axle ratios front and back to keep the transmission "tight". On later models BMW changed the ratios slightly (reduced the difference) and fixed the problem (the rear tyres on my TD4 lasted 80K miles!). I understand that one of the jobs to do on an early Freelander service was to swap the rear tyes over to help with this otherwise there is no cure.

Dennis