My sunfire is making a funny... Wooo wooo wooo wooo wooo. Kind of sound from the front end. Its not a high pitched sound. Much more low end. It speeds up when I go faster, and slows down as I slow down. CV joint boots are fine (no cracks, no funny sounds at turning with the wheel to ethier extreme right or left).


The sound started last fall... but with cold weather seemed to have gone away, now that its warmer its back.

What should I replace?

if its a humming noise its the wheel bearing

If its more of a scraping sound than a humming its your brakes. I was getting a similar sound in my old 96'. I thought it was the wheel bearing, but i had to put brakes on it before i could afford to do the wheel bearing and the sound went away.

more of a hum then a scrape.

might as well just order 2 new bearings. and put them on when I do the winter to summer wheel swap, since the wheels will be off anyway.

generally a wheel bearing noise goes away when you load that side of the car up (example, right bearing is gone, you turn left, noise goes away). if its not going away when you turn, its possible both sides are gone. best way to find out is to put the car up in the air and grab the wheel on opposite sides and shake it left and right, then up and down. if you feel play in the wheel there are 2 possible common scenarios:

- lug nuts loose
- wheel bearing gone



1997 Cavalier Z24 - 16.3 in 1320 and falling...

thanks white.

i'll order them anyways, (just to have parts on hand) and return if nesscary. I think both are starting to go. Before it sounded like just the right side, now its pretty even on both.

car has 111k miles on it... at least its not rears with those abs sensors :-p

mine was a bit different... it confused my tire/alignment shop (after i gave up i asked them to check while they aligning the car cause i replaced a outer tie rod end.) and they said take it to the dealer... the dealer also couldnt figure it out... .

heres what happened... i heard a clicking sound from the driver front, and a clanging sound from under the dash. The clicking was loudest at 35 MPH and would get faster with speed. The noise would happen when i was turning to the driver's side and going straight., When i turned to the passenger side, it went away, Everyone who rode in my car on the passenger side said they heard and felt the vibrations from it more so coming from the driver side of the vehicle

i looked under the car... driver CV Axle had a rip in the boot... so i replaced it.... no effect...

while changing the CV Axle, i noticed the tie-rod end's boot was torn, replaced it, filled it with grease ... No effect

before i took it to the alignment shop, i replaced the driver wheel berring... STILL no effect.

After a few months of thinking about it... i decided to change the passenger wheel berring... as soon as i pulled it out, i knew it was bad... the hub was covered in rust and turning it out of the car it felt weird... but still intact... (if i shook the wheel while on a lift, it wouldnt move or anything)...

After putting in the new passenger wheel berring, the problem went away...

Ya I talked about it with a guy at work. He said bearings right away (I just told him the sound I heard)

rockauto has timken for ~50 dollars a set. i'll just pick up 2. I have most of the tools (have to check on the torex size though). Put the car up on jacks, maybe even pre-maturely replace the pads since the wheels are off and the brake has to come off anyway. Get all that maintance out of the way and be set for summer with no worries.

TORX T-55

50 bucks for a set of two??? damn... i spent 50 bucks a piece on mine wholesale from advance auto parts

err, typo. 50 a piece. I considered each hub/bearing a set.

rock auto has them for about that much for the timken ones.