Wheel bearing or R-comp tire making noise?

[abyssFT86]

Howdy,

I've got a 2020 BRZ, 6,600 mi on the clock and 12 track days. Mechanic mentioned that they were concerned about the wheel bearing because of the noise coming from the car. To me it sounds like a hollow sort of humming sound. The sound doesn't get worse when steering right to left at speed, so the mechanic said they think it's a bearing in the back wheels.

When they pointed out the noise, my initial thought was that I have r-comp tires (Toyo R888R) which as long as I can remember have had a lot of road noise. Also have Annex coilovers which are quite stiff so there's a good deal of road noise / vibration coming through.

Anyways, my questions are -

1) is there an easy way to tell whether the wheel bearing is actually bad? I'd be surprised if one went bad at 6,600 even with the track days. I could bring it into the dealer (still under warranty) but expect they'd probably just blame the tires and suspension work.

2) could leaving a wheel bearing that's potentially going bad in place cause a catastrophic failure at the track, or would it gracefully fail (just start getting louder)?

thanks!

[itschris]

I replaced my fronts with new OEM hubs and started hearing a whirring noise ~7k later. I kept driving on it for another 5k until the noise got too loud for my commute. There was no noticable play but lots of groaning under anything other than light braking.

They're easy enough to swap. You could just do it and keep the extra on hand if it doesn't improve since you'll eventually need it. I don't think they last very long on these cars especially if track driving is mixed in.

[NoHaveMSG]

Tracking these cars is hard on front hubs.It does seem to be a bit hit or miss as I know some people that have only been through 1 or 2. I am on my 3rd set. You will hear it under corner load and may feel it a bit through the wheel. Checking it on stands doesn’t really work until they start to get really bad.

[churchx]

Front beering humming volume should change if turning or driving straight, and yes, relatively simple change. If humming noise is constant, yes, possible rear one. With that there might be some issue, that if rear wheel bearing is seased on hub, possibly for removing usage of Clarkson's favorite tool might be needed, which can damage bearing .. so possibly one may need to buy whole hub with bearing.

[abyssFT86]

Thanks all, good to know it's a simpler fix. I did some more research here and elsewhere.

- There are a number of complaints of R888R creating a noise that sounds like wheel bearing failure (fount 10+ on different car platforms). This seems to be due to the wide / particular v shaped grooves on that tire. Generally folks reported that noise starting around 40mph and worse on particular road surfaces.

- Many on this forum report high amount of use (ex: 100+ track days, 60,000mi+ before wheel bearing failure), CSG Mike mentioned in another thread that it is not-so-common on these cars. Still, others like itschris above report very short intervals (7,000 mi) so clearly variable.


My guess given the above is that my wheel bearings aren't actually going bad. I did make a service appt at the dealer but going to do some test driving and will likely cancel

[MrSkubi]

Not sure about your bearing situation but my experience with R888Rs is that they get ridiculously loud as soon as you reach anything above 50 kph (around 30 mph I guess).

[Spairo]

Do you have another set of wheels and tires that you can throw on?

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk