AT tires will be somewhat noisy from day one. But if you don't rotate them often enough, (which could be as little as every 3000 miles depending on how you use the truck, the spec is actually 5000) then the edges of the tires will start to "lift" and they will get even louder in a hurry. Once the tire treads start to lift, the tires will continue to wear that way for the life of the tire. The best way to describe the wear that I m talking about is look at the inside row of tread, VS the outside row of tread on each tire. Look to see if each individual lug is the same height from one end to the other. Saying it another way, each tread lug should be a "flat top", not a saw tooth. The saw tooth look is what creates the noise as the raised side of the lug essentially slaps the road each time it contacts it.

When you do rotate, the old idea of keeping the tires on the same side of the car is no longer valid. You should reverse the direction of rotation, provided you do not have directional tires, every other tire rotation. Take the front tires, and X them to the rear, then take the rear straight forward. The front tires because of steering will tend to pull the tread lugs into the sawtooth pattern.

Other issues such as tire balance, alignment, and chasis/suspension problems will tend to exaggerate any tire wear problems and need to be checked periodically.

Most any brand of tire with a blocky tread pattern will be noisy on the highway. I had a set of Goodyear Wranglers on my Jeep Cherokee. The tires were good but the road noise drove me nuts on trips.

Its tough to find a good compromise between a tread with good 'bite' and one that gives smooth, low noise ride. Generally speaking, tires rated for Mud/Snow have blocky treads (up to 60% open space between tread blocks) and are noisy. I was satisfied with a set of Michelin all weather tires. Another choice is Continentals.

If you do not go off road, try a set of 'all season' snow and street tires.

Thanks guys. They do show the wear pattern that john g describes. I was wondering if that wear was giving the tire the noise characteristics of a more open lug tread. I've been rotating them front to rear once per year. It will be a cold day when I rotate tires at the same frequency as I change oil, 3000k-ish miles. I'd rather buy tires a little more often.

The truck came with wranglers. They were ok wear wise, lousy traction wise. So bad in fact that my wife wanted me to install a positrac unit to keep a rear tire from breaking loose so easily. I wanted to try different tires first. When the wranglers wore out, we switched to these Bridgestones. That solved the traction problems. They were actually pretty quite when new. At least compared to now. It's just in the last year that the noise level has gotten kind of high. That got me wondering if it were a bearing problem. Been noisy for quite a few miles now so I'm thinking if it were a bearing, it would show more symtoms by now. It's probably the 'saw tooth' wear pattern on the edges like you suggest.

My AT Revos were very quiet at first then started getting noisy after 20K miles. I rotate tires about every 5- 7K miles; I don't see the sawtooth pattern described. Would rotating in the X pattern as described help the noise any? These tires are on a Honda Pilot, and I love the traction etc. I had a set of these same tires on my last car, a Jeep Grand Cherokee and they never became as noisy even after 500K.