rumbline noise on my 2002 wrangler at highway speed

Is there any vibration or shimmy? Or just noise?

no vibration or shimmy. "swaying" the car on the interstate in order to shift the load left and right also does not make a difference.

now, i just bought the jeep and the first thing i did was put new tires on it. i put them on so fast that i have no idea if this sound was there with the old tires or not. at first i thought i had noisy tires, but the tire shop says the noise is in the drivetrain. they have not attempted to go any further with it. it sounds just like noisy tires, but i see someone suggested a u-joint, so this would follow along with drivetrain i guess.

any other thoughts, or should i pursue the u-joint thing?

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Frank_v7.0 wrote:

I'll join the chorus. Have the U-joints checked... by someone competent.

Of course the tire shop says it is the drive train. That gets them off the hook! The universal joints are real easy to check though. It's probably the back one.

A "rumble" is a u-joint. A "howl" is a rear axle going bad. What kind of tires did you put on it?

Earle

bridgestone duelers. i tend to trust the tire shop. i've bought tons of tires there, so there's sort of that bond and trust thing going on.

Earle Hort> Of course the tire shop says it is the drive train. That gets them off the

I am not familiar with this tire, but the name doesn't look like "Wolverine Claw" or something that you would expect to make a lot of road noise. If I am wrong, and the tires have great big lugs for gripping in the mud, that could be the problem. Otherwise, the u-joints are really easy to check with a few simple tools. If you need to replace one, I recommend taking the whole drive shaft to a machine shop. Let them worry about it if one of the cups is seized in a yoke.

Earle

cool. doing that tomorrow. will try to remember to be a good citizen and post back to the board. i am not a regular forum user, but this seems to be working okay.

driveshaft was out of balance. fixed now.