Wheel bearings gone bad
 

I’ve got a 2013 brz that’s got all the symptoms of a bad wheel bearing (vibration at low speed, clicking/creaking while turning, roar at 50mph) and I’m curious if anyone who has had a wheel bearing go bad got it covered without hassle under warranty. I have 7k left of my 7y/100k CPO, but when I brought the car to the dealer in October they said they couldn’t replicate the sounds. I’ll be bringing it in on Monday, any advice on how to get the dealer to listen?

Welcome to the forum, rustymuffler … :)

I suggest you take the tech for a ride and demonstrate what your car is doing.

A bad wheel bearing is pretty easy to detect - when the car is moving, briskly turn the wheel back and forth - does it make a clunking sound? Jack up the car, grab hold of the wheel and move it back and forth, does it feel lose?

humfrz

Thanks for the welcome humfrz! That’s a good idea I’ll see if the technician can ride along.

Turning the wheel causes a creaky clicking sound at parking lot speeds, above that it’s hard to tell. With the car jacked up the wheel doesn’t really feel loose, but hard to tell with the play in the steering rack.

The most obvious is it sounds like there’s a second engine in the car at highway speed..

It is really hard to tell without some disassembly. I had to jack my car up, remove brake pads, put the wheel back on, turn the wheel while applying more pressure to one side, you really need to load it some what while turning it to tell if it has a bad spot. I had a dull roar coming from mine and ended up replacing the front right, which should be no surprise that one went first considering most tracks I have been to run counter clockwise.

So I jacked the car up, and spun the wheel as fast as I could by hand, and even though I didn’t remove the brakes I could hear a bearing race noise, and a low hum. Interestingly also on the front right...

Welcome, Rusty. Yup. Bearings are toast. If you can, take it to another dealer who will listen to you. :/


They should run dead silent but I think you already know that. :cheers:

I have a spare (used, low miles) rear wheel bearing if you are interested. Let me know.

Thanks Ultra. To be fair to the dealer it has become 10x worse since I brought it last, hopefully they will hear it this time around.

Thanks ZionsWrath, I’ll keep that in mind if either rears need replacement and aren’t honored under warranty

Subaru rear wheel bearings are a pain in the ass. I lost a front which is a unit hub. 4 bolts after pulling the wheel and brake.

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My rear bearings are shot, the noise is getting worse but damn it's expensive to get them replaced. The car is doing more sitting than anything else now because of that.

For anyone considering DIY-ing the rear bearings, here's a quick tip.


The reluctor wheel is attached to the axle shaft outboard of the sensor. The wheel speed sensor must be removed before pulling the axle shaft. Otherwise, both it and the reluctor will be destroyed when they interfere with each other.

And don't forget to put the reluctor ring on the hub before pushing the hub through the inner race.

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I finally got the car back from the dealership today and as it turns out, both the front and rear passenger side wheel bearings had gone bad. Covered under warranty with 7k miles left to go. Hopefully the drivers side bearings go bad now or hold out for a while longer...

Welp, glad you got your car fixed.

Now, do you want to tell us about the time you slid into that curb?

:popcorn:

- :iono::D



humfrz

You must have had some other issues like alignment problems, etc for that to happen so quickly.

I had one wheel bearing go bad in my last car and I did a u-turned and slid over to the other lane. No cars were around and no damage but scared me to death.

I think the only curb that the passenger wheels would have seen is during parallel parking. But that only happens once in a blue moon.... I swear!

OK, I got the picture - :D


humfrz

I should have mentioned there’s 7k left in the 100k mile powertrain warranty, so I figure 93k miles out of them isn’t too bad.

you mean the wheel fell off? Sounds pretty scary, I’m glad you made it out ok!

So that’s how you get a Camry dent...

https://jalopnik.com/the-incredible-...ent-1785413530

:lol:

That's good. I've seen several, never knew they had a "name" - :D


humfrz

No. The bad wheel bearing locked up so only one one front wheel turned and it was a rear wheel drive so the car slid over into the other lane.

Scared the crap out of me.

Not judging. I've learned my best lessons the hard way but didn't it make a heluva racket for a while before it got to that point? Do you have a loud exhaust or noisy tires?

Do you have a camber that made them go bad ? Curious to know how they both went bad ?


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Do you have extended warranty? Didn't think wheel bearings were part of powertrain warranty?

It wasn’t making the loud rumbling sound yet or I wasn’t paying attention. It was on my 350z which was a loud car and had a bad toe in alignment problem from the factory which I think caused the wheel bearing to go bad. Got two sets out free tires out of it because the dealer couldn’t get the alignment right.