Possible wheel bearing

[Jan Olsson]

Yesterday I was driving over a cable-channel (designed to be run over since it was at a road construction site)

After a couple of miles I catched up on an older SAAB. I was thinking that he must have some old winter tires on his car (because of the noice) and didn't think much of it until I drove down a newly asphalted road. The noice was still there and there was no one around except me..

I can hear it at 55 mph but not at 50 mph and it can be heard of at lower speeds too. It always follows the road speed and seems like it's comming from the drivers front wheel.

It sounds like when you're driving on asphalt with a 4-wheel drive car with terrain tires.

I guess it only can be driveshafts or wheel bearings. I have no "clicks or clunks" but then on the other side I couldn't hear any difference doing S-kurves on the road.

My guess is that it's time to change the driver side front wheel hub assembly since it is the only wheel that have some play in it (both when grabbing it at 12 and 6 o'clock and at 9 and 3 o'clock).

From what I've gathered it isn't possible to adjust the latch on theese ones? In that case it must be the bearings gone bad?

Hopefully this is related to the slight howl that I've been hearing from the last year or so..I just thought it was a harmonic wave coming from the rough roads we have here in Sweden and that it was a normal sound.

Perhaps this also can solve the unbalance problems I have..I know that I need road force balance but suddenly all of my tires felt "bad", summer an winter tires that is.

The humming sound I always have related to bearing problems but this one sounds like playcards on a boys bicycle wheel or something

Any thoughts?

[BodybyFisher]

Check your tires for broken belts and bulges or odd wear patterns (feathering, etc)

[Ranger]

Play at the 3:00 and 9:00 position indicate play in the tie rod. 12:00 & 6:00 indicate a bearing. Pull the wheel left & right and see if the noise comes and goes.

[BodybyFisher]

Play at the 3:00 and 9:00 position indicate play in the tie rod. 12:00 & 6:00 indicate a bearing. Pull the wheel left & right and see if the noise comes and goes.

Very true, I was focused on the noise that came about suddenly, I didnt pay too much attention to the play. I wonder what caused the noise all of a sudden, toe out?

[Cadillac Jim]

Check and see if a rubber boot over a CV Joint cracked or split.

If you do have a wheel bearing, you can change the bearing without changing the hub. The dealer will only change the hub because tapping out the old bearing and pressing in a new one is a skilled machine shop job, and doing that kind of work at the dealer doesn't make sense with the rather generous GM warranty for all Goodwrench work. The problem is finding the bearing without the hub, and a machine shop that can do the press work and leave the bearing and hub OK afterward.

In the old days you could repack and torque wheel bearings. Most newer cars including yours have sealed wheel bearings. If they get loose, they're done.

[jlinde]

If you put the front wheels up in the air and let the wheels spin at 55-60 mph you will

probably hear which wheel bearing it is. But I do not know if the Cad's ABS or

Traction computer will react. The best would be to only have one wheel in the air.

I did that once on a 90 Pontiac Grand Prix and it worked absolutely ok

despite the ABS (that car did not have traction though). A wheel with good bearings

will be real quiet. And the faulty bearing's humming will be easily heard.

/Jan L

[Jan Olsson]

Thanks for all the replies! I'll try lift the front end up and spin the wheels with the engine.

[BodybyFisher]

Thanks for all the replies! I'll try lift the front end up and spin the wheels with the engine.

Be careful spinning the wheel free like this, I think the service manual gives a limit to how fast it should spin, say 50 to 60, do not go beyond that and do not hit the brake while it is spinning fast, you can do damage.

If you have a bad hub bearing I am surprised that the S turn diagnostic method does not show it. Good luck

[Cadillac Jim]

If you are going to lift both wheels off the ground, put the transmission in neutral and rotate each wheel by hand. You should easily feel the bad bearing in the wheel, by roughness or resistance in the bearing. Also, hub slack from a loose wheel bearing is easy to find with the wheels off the ground.

[Jan Olsson]

My theory is that the cable channel was what it took to finally make the bearing (s) go bad. I'm also believing that a bad hub will make the car more sensitive to out of round/out of balance tires/wheels.

The hub is also the only thing rotating that takes the load from the tires so it makes good sence. Since it has some play and there is no possibility to tighten it up I guess it's shot.

I know that I'll propably need a road force balance but last winter (after I had the front engine mount replaced) all of a sudden I had problems (2 weeks after the front mount was replaced) with vibrations (before that no vibrations at all)

I had the winter tires dynamically balanced and that help for like 2 days.

Then I tried with my summer tires and they felt better but not as good as I remembered. I also tried to shift the front ones with the rear ones. Better but not as good as I remembered.

This summer it was time to buy new tires, they were wonderful for about 1000-1500 miles but now the car feels worser than ever.

I will take the time to have them road-forced balanced, but I'll have to take a day off to do that. But I think that the bad hub is contributing to the vibrations so I'll replace it before road-force balancing the tires.

At least it seems like an easy job.

The tires looks fine but I'll take them off one by one and carefully inspect them and also look att the tie-rods for play.

Keeping my fingers crossed!

[jking220]

At least it seems like an easy job.

Good Luck!! I've had quite a few "easy jobs" turn bad.

My fingers are crossed for you.

[Ranger]

I do not think that the bearings are serviceable. The bearing is sealed and pressed in place and the hub includes the speed sensor. Anything is possible, but might be more trouble than it's worth.

[Jan Olsson]

Ok, here's an update.

I checked the tires and they all looked fine. When spinning the wheels (by hand was enough) I heard the sound more pronounced on the left side of the car. It's hard to tell from where it origins ie if it is the drive shaft or the wheel bearings. If I do a rough estimate that's on the safe side (ie a lower frequency than heard of) it sounds like the sound is at 150 Hz when driving at 40 km/h (11 m/s).

Roughly the tire is 2 m in circumference which means that the fault causing the sound does that 150/(11/2) =27 times/revolution.

I gather that neither the tripod or the CV-joints in the driveshaft could generate sounds with that frequency at that speed since they have to few elements that could rock/make contact that many times for just one revoultion.

No visual signs except from the play in the hub. One question though. Is it safe to drive with it (like if it is angular contact bearings) or will the wheel fall off if I persist driving until I have the new hub?

[Cadillac Jim]

There is also the half-shaft bearing in the transmission, and the transmission pinion bearing here. I would get it fixed before I took it out on the road far from home.

[Jan Olsson]

There is also the half-shaft bearing in the transmission, and the transmission pinion bearing here. I would get it fixed before I took it out on the road far from home.

Hm, better rise it and listen carefully at the tranny too, didn't even cross my mind to fear the worst.. Please don't scare me like that

I was a bit lazy and assumed that it would be either the hub or the CV-joint..

When rised both wheels wanted to spin due to the differential. When spinning the left wheel I could hear the sound clearly and also feel some "knocks" in the left wheel when spinning fast enough.

When spinning the right wheel I couldn't feel anything but still hear it (because the left wheel also turned) but it sounded less so I figured it was the left side.

Well, I'll check just to rule the tranny out!

Or do you mean that I add stress to the mentioned bearings?

[Ranger]

My money is on the wheel bearing. If you drive it like that long enough and ignore the warning, the wheel will eventually fall off, but before that happens the bearing will be squealing and howling for mercy (likely smoking as well) so loud that you will have to make a conscious effort to ignore it. It is far from the critical stage. you're safe for quite sometime.

[BodybyFisher]

Jan, if you have difficulty getting the part by you or its very expensive, let me know, I will ship it to you, I have done that will Stefan. Mike

[Cadillac Jim]

I don't think that the bearings inside the half-shaft or differential are very likely either. However when you mention driving the car for awhile and postponing the repair before you are sure which bearing it is, you should know all the possibilities. These bearings aren't part of the transmission internals, though. The differential comes out the right half-shaft, for example, and I believe that the left half-shaft also comes off, so that replacing these bearings is a machine shop job with the tranny in the car.

[Jan Olsson]

Jan, if you have difficulty getting the part by you or its very expensive, let me know, I will ship it to you, I have done that will Stefan. Mike

I appreciate that but I'm planning to buy from RockAuto (after listening once and for all from underneath the car today) and the parts should arrive within 7 days. Since I have a 5% discount offer from them the total should be less than 1/2 the price when bought here in Sweden.

It's great to know that I can count on you sending parts to me if I ever will need it! Many thanks

[Jan Olsson]

My money is on the wheel bearing. If you drive it like that long enough and ignore the warning, the wheel will eventually fall off, but before that happens the bearing will be squealing and howling for mercy (likely smoking as well) so loud that you will have to make a conscious effort to ignore it. It is far from the critical stage. you're safe for quite sometime.

I was just hoping that the car would last long enough until I had the new (possible) hub

The noice came from out of nowhere and that makes me nervous to use it at all until fixed.

[Jan Olsson]

I don't think that the bearings inside the half-shaft or differential are very likely either. However when you mention driving the car for awhile and postponing the repair before you are sure which bearing it is, you should know all the possibilities. These bearings aren't part of the transmission internals, though. The differential comes out the right half-shaft, for example, and I believe that the left half-shaft also comes off, so that replacing these bearings is a machine shop job with the tranny in the car.

Good to know that it's relatively "easy" to fix if it is the case. Easier than dropping the tranny anyway..

[Cadillac Jim]

If it is a half-shaft bearing, you can probably remove the half-shafts and differential with the transmission in the car. It's very unlikely in any case. I mentioned it as a possibility only because you were talking about continuing to drive the car before finding out for sure which bearing was giving trouble.

[Jan Olsson]

If it is a half-shaft bearing, you can probably remove the half-shafts and differential with the transmission in the car.

Yes from what I've gathered they are serviceable in place. I meant that it would be easier than dropping the tranny for having the internals serviced.

[Jan Olsson]

Ok, here's the deal. I had the car up once again and crawled under it while wifey was spinning the wheels by hand. Poor dear neads a rest now Since the final drive always rotates the oppsite wheel in the opposite direction as the spinned one all I could catch up was final drive sounds. The things that is rotating in the final drive when both (or just one wheel for that matter) wheels are up are the things that are in rest when driving in a straight line with wheels on the ground (ie differential internals) so those sounds don't appear when I notice the humming terrain-tire sound.

The only things rotating when spinning the wheels in the air and also rotating when wheels are on the ground are wheel bearings and half-shaft/half-shaft bearings.

I even listened with a stetoscope but to no avail. I guess that the sound only can be heard of when under load.

I'm going to order a wheel hub. Frustrating not to be able to tell where the sound comes from (except from when driving and it is hard to tell)

I also test drove and held the speed constant in a nearby street corner (whoa!) since the usual s-turns didn't make any change in sounds. It sounded like the noice was fading in a left corner so perhaps it is true that the left wheel hub will do the trick.

I've changed several wheel bearings on different cars but never had one sound like this or for that matter sound in a straight line. If it is a ball-bearing it could be that a ball has split in half..that would make an awful sound. But I'm thinking that this is roller bearings?

[BodybyFisher]

Jan, if you have difficulty getting the part by you or its very expensive, let me know, I will ship it to you, I have done that will Stefan. Mike

I appreciate that but I'm planning to buy from RockAuto (after listening once and for all from underneath the car today) and the parts should arrive within 7 days. Since I have a 5% discount offer from them the total should be less than 1/2 the price when bought here in Sweden.

It's great to know that I can count on you sending parts to me if I ever will need it! Many thanks

I am glad that Rockauto will ship to you, I was unaware of that. If you ever need a part you can't get let me know, Mike