has anyone had to replace their ball bearings? There is vibration and lots of road noise when I go about 10-15 mph. Ever since I rotated my tires this noise/vibration appeared. What usually causes damage to the ball bearings? I haven't gone to a mechanic yet but my uncle just said its very possible that the ball bearings are failing. Price and difficulty to fix this? I am debating if I can do it myself or just pay someone to do it because I gotta make a 4 hour drive in a few days.

 

hmmm.. i wonder what the problem is....

 

i would double check your torque settings on the lug nuts first before you go and break your studs. Then look to see if you knocked off the weights on the wheel, it could be off balance.

 

true, thats what I thought, its been raining a lot down here so I will wait till tommorow.

 

here's a question..
how'd you rotate your tires..?

i have this intuition that someone didn't read their owner's manual..
(pg. 221 for the '06 guys)

 

i took it the tire place that I bought my tires from. I've gone there many times and never had a problem but not saying they are perfect because anyone can make mistakes.

today I loosened the lug nuts and tightened them back up and the noise is still there. I went to Firestone and the guy just said if it was the hub bearings, you would definitely notice a really bad noise but they didn't jack up the car to inspect it. He said that my tires are to blame for the noise since I have sport tires.

http://www.discountautoparts.com/aut...b-Bearing.html

hopefully its just uneven tire wear. I am going to take it to firestone and have them actually check it because I am paranoid if it is the hub bearings and I don't want to be stuck in the middle of the turnpike.

 

jack up the car so the wheel in question is not on the ground. with the car in neutral (or ebrake down if rear wheel) slowly spin the wheel. if you hear a small grinding sound (sounds like gently dragging a hammer's head on a concrete floor) then you got a bad wheel bearing.

also grab the tire /wheel and see if its loose or wobbly. bad wheel bearings have some play, while good bearings keep the wheel tight against the hub.

you can drive on bad wheel bearings just fine. i've probably put 10,000 miles on my car since I discovered my bearings were bad.

240sx and honda guys will put 150,000+ miles on their cars before ever changing their wheel bearings.
on the other extreme, VW's need their bearing replaced every 50K miles or so (especially for lowered cars on low profile tires). ive read numerous stories about the wheel falling off while driving because of extremely bad wheel bearings. german engineering LOL. btw I've own a vw, honda, and 240sx.

 

i just replaced a pretty bad vibrating and noisy wheel bearing, cost me around 400 bucks. the front one still needs it too... it seems like it just started up recently, bt i suspect the person before me was not nice to my baby.