ronnieb

2006 xB whines. Sounds like snow tires so it gets higher with more speed.
Still makes the sound when in neutral. Sound varies with speed of car.

Anybody any ideas the cause? 5 speed manual.

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62Fender

Sounds like a bum wheel bearing. You can remove your wheels and wiggle the hub assemblies. A bad bearing 'might' wobble.

In the event your (potentially) bad bearing isn't bad enough to wobble, use a surface thermometer. Drive the car 4 or 5 miles then take a temp reading of all 4 hubs. Any bad bearing(s) should read hotter than the others.

ronnieb

Thanks, are the bearings expensive to replace?

MileHightC

Expensive...not particularly if you can do it yourself. Front wheel bearings are significantly more difficult to do than the back wheel bearings that are non-rebuildable and come as entire new hub unit.

Rock Auto is going to be the best place for finding wheel bearings, I'd typically recommend spending a little more and getting SKF or Timken bearings, and you can find posts on here describing how to replace both front and rear wheel bearings.

ronnieb

Thanks!

RyanL

If you live in a drier climate the rears should be dead simple to replace for a DIYer. If you live on the east coast expect it to take an entire weekend. I had to do mine about 2 years ago (they went bad around 200k miles) and they were completely rusted into place. I'm talking a couple gallons of penatrating oil, torches, jack hammers, etc. I ended up getting mine out using a whole bunch of 1&1/4 rigid pipe and couplings along with 2-24" pipe wrenches to spread the pipe assembly. That was one of those times where I wished I had just taken it somewhere to begin with.

ronnieb

Thanks...good to know. I don't have a place where I can do it myself. Gonna get it done at a local garage. Pretty sure it's the front. Gonna get them fixed right now. Rear in the spring. Thanks for your response!