First off, I'm new to the forums sooo here goes the first post .

I recently bought a 1997 Honda Accord LX. My first new car and first 5-speed... For the most part so far so good... I've had it for a day and well, there are a couple concerns I have but I'll just take on the one mentioned in the subject.

Information:

1997 Honda Accord LX
137k miles
5-speed
Ingen Air Intake System

It's had a couple of owners and the one before the one I bought it from had souped it up a bit (ie; Ingen Air Intake).

My problem is that anything over 45mph will result in a loud whirling type sound. It's a constant sound, one that doesn't thump at all and also doesn't cause the car problems (As far as I know). It is just extremely loud and the only way to get by it is to crank up the stereo.

A mechanic mentioned to me it is probably the air intake kicking in, I have no clue I don't know much about cars. I did some tests on my own, I popped the hood and gave it some gas so I could get a feel for the sound of the intake. Like I've mentioned from 0 to around 40 it's not loud at all except for a bit from the intake. Around that 40 it makes that whirling sound from the front part of the car, it sounds like it may be coming from the engine but I'm thinking more so tires. I've put it in neutral on the freeway and let off on the gas and the sound is still there and doesn't go away until I slow down.

So would this be the intake? Is this just normal and I have to get used to it? Is this be my tires? And if my tires, wouldn't I have some sort of problems with them driving normally under 40mph?

 

I have a 2000 Honda Accord Coupe, and I am having the very same problem.

The road noise is only evident at 40 kph (I am up in Canada) and faster. The noise occurs under acceleration, deceleration, and cruising speed. It is present in nutral and in gear.

I have noticed that it gets louder if I am turning (at that speed it is not a big turn) changing lanes for example.

I just bought the car a couple months ago, and it has fairly new snow tires on it, could the noise be just the aggressive treads?

I have checked the front wheel wells and see nothing that could be rubbing?

Any I ideas??

THANKS!!

Glad I found this forum, it looks like there is lots of good info!

 

I should call myself the general bystander because I don't own a accord yet. But I have seen a lot of posts on different forums and tire reviews where some tires are quiter than others, some are very loud. I've experienced this with my current car when I switched from one type of brand tire to another and also seen one tire that started out quite and got louder as the tread wore down. I wish you had another set of tires that you could at least switch them on just to test it. That would be the ideal way of telling at least if it's the tires or not. They redid some roads out where I live in sections and the new patches are rougher and boy does the noise go way up on those sections than the previous smooth blacktop sections. Sounds like they are still jackhammering the road by the noise it makes driving over it. But this is the best I can give you on this. Is there any different smoother roads you could also find to see if this quites the car any? Just a thought. Good luck anyway finding out what's going on.