Grinding / Vibration from front left..

Dundy2456 · Postby **Dundy2456** » Sun Apr 24, 2016 2:58 pm

Hey everyone,

I have a noise that I've isolated to the front left section of my car. It gets louder with speed, is independent of acceleration and does not go away or get worse with braking. It sounds like a plane taking off. I have checked and confirmed that the tyre clears the guard and the plastic splash-guard thing inside the wheel well. I can upload an audio clip if that would help diagnosis?

What I haven't done due to time constraints:

Jacked up car and rotated wheel.
Taken off wheel and visually inspected Hub.

Im assuming it's the bearing.
I will have time over the long weekend to investigate more but was hoping for some quick input from the forum.

Cheers

Rolley · Postby **Rolley** » Sun Apr 24, 2016 3:06 pm

Sounds like a hub/bearing to me.
As soon as you spin the wheel up by hand you'll know for sure. Grab the spring and you will feel it vibrating as you spin the wheel.

hks_kansei · Postby **hks_kansei** » Sun Apr 24, 2016 9:59 pm

Wheel bearing.

Mines flocked too.

Front left usually goes before the others since it cops most force (way more right turns on Aussie roads than left)

Dundy2456 · Postby **Dundy2456** » Mon Apr 25, 2016 1:57 pm

Thanks for the insights. How dangerous is it to drive on short term while I organise a replacement? I don't have a second car..

greenMachine · Postby **greenMachine** » Mon Apr 25, 2016 2:54 pm

Dundy2456 wrote:Thanks for the insights. How dangerous is it to drive on short term while I organise a replacement? I don't have a second car..

Depends on what you call 'short term', and how far gone the bearings are. Grinding/vibration are the symptoms of a set of pretty far gone bearings.

Bottom line, the wheel will probably not come off in the case of total catastrophic failure, because it is held on by the brake calliper. Probably. Unless the disk breaks. If you can choose the place/speed/circumstances of this failure then no problem, just keep driving and shut the noise out. But you can't.

Jack the car up. If the wheel has more that a few mm of play when you pull it in/out of the guard, I would get them done very soon, maybe tomorrow, certainly as soon as I could. That is not to say it will fail totally tomorrow, or next week even, but they are well down the slippery slope. My guess is that the deterioration will be accelerating exponentially, so the faster you drive it, the further you drive it, the quicker total collapse will happen.

How is the bus service in your part of town?

:mrgreen:

Dundy2456 · Postby **Dundy2456** » Tue Apr 26, 2016 2:26 pm

Cheers greenMachine and everyone else. I'm organising a repair this week. I just so happen to live next to a bus stop that goes directly to my local train station so not all is lost!

Dundy2456 · Postby **Dundy2456** » Sat May 14, 2016 12:10 pm

Hey everyone,

So, new hub and bearing assemblies were ordered. They arrived and I installed them myself. Quick question.. Are they meant to be fully sealed units?

I ask this because when I was putting the left one on, the axle 'popped' out one side of the bearing. I had greased it up with marine grade grease prior to fitting..

I didn't take a pic of it as i was able to pop it back in place and it appeared normal, as well as my logic that the axle nut would prevent it from popping out again..

I'll attach a picture of the old Bearing that was damaged, as the same part on that had popped out of the new one.

Essentially, I'm asking so I can organize a warranty return or not...

Cheers