eisman.s4

So I got a set of 18" Enkei OR52 wheels with Falken/Ziex Ze 512s earlier this year. I've had them on for about 6 weeks. I've always had front wheel bearing noise, but it seemed to get worse after I put the new wheels on.

I wound up changing the front wheel bearings with OEM bearings from PureMS, but the sound still was there. I thought I had a pad dragging, but I pulled and reinstalled the calipers again. The pads were seated fine. I lived with it because I couldn't locate the noise and I wasn't going to tear the whole thing apart again to check the CV joints.

Well, over the Thanksgiving weekend I put my stock Avus wheels with new Hankook Icebear W300 on for winter driving. I was expecting even more noise from the winter tires, but the noise is gone. I've gone probably 100 miles on this setup now and I can hear the engine and exhaust again. It is nice.

The only thing I can think that would be causing such a loud front end noise is the hubcentric rings that came with the Enkei wheels. They are made of plastic and don't seem very rugged to me. I made sure my lugs were torqued to spec (89ftlbs IIRC). Has anyone ever run into this?