I recently hit a tall kerb at around 20-25mph while turning left, on the front right/driver side. The wheel hit it but there doesn’t seem to be any visible damage and the car drives fine. But when I drive past 35/40mph there’s a loud vibrating humming noise that is audible. It’s noticeable and definitely louder than before. It seems to be coming from the front right side of the car, from what I can tell.

What could it be?

Any info would be appreciated. Thank you!

I wonder if you've buckled the wheel.

Swap the wheels around , if the sound follows the wheel then the wheel is damaged, if the sound comes from the same place then you've bent the suspension.

Depending on the type of humming noise I would check if the wheel arch’s or front bumper has become unclipped. I had a horrible sounding humming noise and turned out it was just some connection clips under the front bumper 

I'm with Bobr.  You might not know if the wheel had become out of true until you jack that corner up, put in neutral and turn it by hand.  Plonk something sturdy beside the wheel that has rod, pencil, spoon, or whatever projecting from it and move its end next to the edge of the rim, but clearing it as a reference point.  You’ll see how much it’s buckled.  I think I remember a couple of mm as being the tolerance for an MOT, probably wrong now though.

I have not checked the mot manual today but I don’t think it specifies an amount of mm. I think it just says it must not be badly distorted.  I think the motorbike mot manual specifies the amount of mm iirc. I agree it needs jacking up and spinning against a reference point to see if buckled sideways or buckled towards the middle of wheel or if tyre damaged eg bulging etc. or possible some balance weights came off but if do you will probably see where from the outline of where they were.

On 12/17/2021 at 6:17 PM, isetta said:

motorbike mot manual specifies the amount of mm

Yeah, must be what I was thinking of, but probably not a bad yardstick for car tolerance.  As I understand it, excessively out of true will pay its toll on the wheel bearings, so no point in having wobbly wheels : - )

Thanks everyone for the advice and help! Turns out the wheel rim has slightly deformed and needs balancing and there’s a potential issue with the steering rack too, which is creaky and making some noises it shouldn’t be. 

Balancing might only partially help. Normally with that kind of damage to an Alloy wheel it is the inner side that gets deformed and buckled because it is cantilevered.

If it does prove to be problematic then a wheel refurbishment specialist might be able to get it back into shape, failing that you might need a new wheel.