I have a 2005 Civic w/100k on it, bone stock.

14 months ago I got a set of General Altimax HP, I know they're not the best tires but they were in my price range, I also had an alignment done.

After about 8 months I started noticing a rotation based humming noise coming from the rear of the car, almost like the tire had a bad spot or something. It was barely noticeable so I didn't think it was a big deal.

I had my tires rotated after about 17k (I hate waiting 2 hours) and the tire noise got much worse with the noisy tire on the front end, very bad under breaking and between 30-50mph, I can feel the bad spot in the steering wheel and brake pedal.

After a couple months and another 3k miles the noise didn't get any better so I decided to take it back to Tire Discounters, they said it's because I didn't rotate my tires like I should and I'd have to pay full price, I was not happy.

Could this be true?

I guess I should have brought the car in when I first noticed the noise but oh well, it's probably going to cost me $100.

 

yes, you should've rotated the tires at 5k miles or less. i doubt not rotating it made the bad tire worse than it would be if you did rotate, but i don't blame the tire shop for using the fact you didn't rotate as an excuse to charge you more, businesses will be businesses.

when you say Tire discounters, do you mean Discount Tire? if so, i know for a fact that almost all of the shops have pretty flexible rules and pricing so if you bitch, moan, and yell enough they will charge you less.

 

I know from experience that if you wait longer than 5000 miles before rotating the tires, you could end up with annoying humming.