Hi all,

When I'm driving on a nice smooth, quiet road surface I can just about hear a gentle thud, thud, thud, thud noise from the back of the car which follows the speed of the car rather than the engine revs. It's quite faint and normal road noise drowns it out but it's definitely there. It's a bit like driving over a load of tiny, equally spaced bumps in the road...but without the car itself bumping up and down, if you see what I mean. It's not loud (most people wouldn't notice it I suspect) but is at its clearest between 40-50mph I'd say and I'm sure I can hear more 'road' noise when on the motorway than I should - certainly more than my old FL. My wife reckoned she couldn't hear anything on the motorway but then she doesn't drive the car so wouldn't necessarily recognise anything out of the ordinary. My daughter, sat in the back, said she could hear the thud, thud, thud thing when we slowed down though.

The tyres (Pirelli Scorpion Zeros) are not new but I've examined them for any signs of uneven wear or anything stuck in them and they look fine. They still have around 6-7mm of tread left.

Any ideas what this is likely to be in a car that's only 18 months old with 17k miles on the clock? Surely it's not the infamous diff bearing or a wheel bearing this soon...is it???

It could well be tyres.
My 07 suffers from this problem when the rear N/S tyre gets down to 3 to 4 mm. It sounds almost like you have square tyres or driving over those 'speed strips' all the time.
However I have Goodyear Wranglers on and they are definately prone to this.
Try swapping each rear wheel with the spare to see if the noise goes. Tattoos - Why would you choose to look like the wall of a public toilet?

For what it's worth I had a similar noise which was caused by the rear brake pipe that had come out of its clip/retainer and was rubbing against the inside of the wheel. Eventually the hose wore through and I had a rather interesting non braking experience. The local land Rover people told me this was a common problem after off-roading.

OK it may or may not sound like a thud thud thud, but check the heat shielding has not dropped onto the propshaft.

Hmm. Sounds like I'd better have a crawl about underneath for a shufti before I start getting agitated about bearings then.

Thanks for the advice.

I had exact same noise, tyres looked fine although getting low, had new tyres and the noise went

RRS did that with end of life wranglers. At work
At home

"I can't always believe facts I read on the web" - Charles Dickens

winner by default of the tractor vs caravan race

had same problem. ended up slight bulge in the tyre . you need to give em a spin and check inside, outside tyre wall as well as the tread