How can i tell if my wheel bearing is bad? besides the squeking (sp?) noise everytime the wheel makes a full turn.
1998 Sunfire, 2.2L auto
take it out and look at it. could just need repacked.
i do my high school co-op in a garage in town and learned about wheel bearings take the bearing out and stick a couple fingers in it and spin if you can feel it grinding the sides at all its bad it should roll smooth as butter and if its really really bad lift your car and try to move the specific wheel i saw one so bad you could move the wheel around even though the wheel was properly torqued to the car
well it seems like the pass side squeeks like once every 1 or 2 weeks and it ony does it for maybe an hour or untill i stop for awhile.
1998 Sunfire, 2.2L auto
Andrew Fletcher wrote:i saw one so bad you could move the wheel around even though the wheel was properly torqued to the car
Its really not bad untill you get about 3/4" of movement. Timkens loved to do that #@^ to me. I replaced about 8 wheel bearings over the course of a year.
bigest indication of bad wheel bearings.... a growling/grinding sound that gets worse the faster you go. when it makes the noise and it goes away when turning its **usually** the side the oposite the dirrection your turning thats bad, there shoudl be NO play in the bearing thats noticable by human hands, jack the car up and move the wheel side to side and up and do and see it there is looseness, if there is up and down looseness check to seeif its the balljoint thats moving when you move the wheel, if its side to side movement check to see if the tie rod is loose, if all that is good and there is still movement its a bearing
A squeak? Or a grind? If it is a squeak I would look at your brakes.
well i went out today and took the tire off and found that i can move the rotor in and out alittle. like its not all the way tighten. this is a problem but what is it?
1998 Sunfire, 2.2L auto
???? if your rotor is loose the wheel itself it loose
The rotor will of course be loose with the tire off. What do you think holds the rotor solid onto the hub?
Put the wheel back on and see if you can wiggle the wheel around any.
um the drivers side wasn't lose at all?
1998 Sunfire, 2.2L auto
Whack it with a rubber mallet and I bet it will be just as loose.
so should it mean that its bad only it you hear grinding noises? Reason I'm asking it b/c im tryin to figure out if its my brakes or bearing on the front wheel since its a little stiff to turn.... the back wheels are fine. Could the front axle shafts connected to the transaxle make the front wheels stiff to turn?
Quote:
bigest indication of bad wheel bearings.... a growling/grinding sound that gets worse the faster you go. when it makes the noise and it goes away when turning its **usually** the side the oposite the dirrection your turning thats bad, there shoudl be NO play in the bearing thats noticable by human hands, jack the car up and move the wheel side to side and up and do and see it there is looseness, if there is up and down looseness check to seeif its the balljoint thats moving when you move the wheel, if its side to side movement check to see if the tie rod is loose, if all that is good and there is still movement its a bearing
^^^^^^^^^^
this guy is right with this whole quote here. if its roaring and grinding when you drive and gets worse either when you turn one way or the other then its defiately a bad wheel bearing. my passenger side had to be changed last week. so i took it to a shop and they charger me $145 to fix it. the part was $80 and the labor was the rest. it only takes about 30 mins. to an hour to fix and its easy as hell. i say do it yourself. save you the money. you need a hub and bearing assembly. they cost about $70-80 bucks. but to be definately sure...jack up your car and try to move the tire around. if it gives then yes you have a bad wheel bearing.
