Finster

Hi Judd, Thanks for the reply - useful to know you've had a similar experience. Weirdly the Foz was OK on the ContiCross all season tyres and it stuck to the road like the proverbial on a blanket. It's the road biased ContiContacts that are making the racket and it tramlines horribly on white lines or any ridges in the road surface now, which it never did with the previous tyres. So long as it's tyre noise and my diff isn't going to go bang, I can put up with it ! I think I'll try and pick up a second hand set of winter wheels and see if that makes any difference

Hi All, I recently had to change the back tyres on my 2006 Forester after getting a big puncture. I was running Continental ContiCross tyres and have to say they were brilliant. Couldn't get the same again due to delivery problems and so ended up with Continental ContiContact 2's instead. I was never happy only replacing a pair as the fronts were 50% worn and so got the garage to order a second pair for me. There was a delay for a couple of months before I finally managed to get the front pair replaced as well. The car has now developed a noise from the rear end which isn't a whine and isn't a rumble, but sounds like the noise a tram makes ! It starts at about 20mph and gets really loud at about 50mph, after which wind noise and engine noise mask it. At 50mph it's loud enough to have to raise your voice to be heard. The garage say it's tyre noise, but I can't believe it would be so loud on a premium tyre like that. My question is - is the diff fragile enough to be damaged by a 3-4mm difference in tread depth between front and back over a couple of thousand miles ? Second question - how can I check it's the diff and not a wheel bearing or prop shaft bearing ? There's no vibration in the drive train and the car has 120,000 on the clock Thanks for any help