duffman13

I was having some significant road noise recently but I had pretty worn tires and wrote it off as low tread noise until very recently.

I just had my tires replaced and an alignment done, and I'm still having some pretty significant noise. It's quiet until about 40mph, and then it starts to sound like a Jeep on knobby off-road tires, but with some pulsing as well. I also have some slight vibration through the wheel. The tire shop didn't say anything, but I don't think they drove the car much beyond determining if it drove straight after the alignment.

My first thought is that it's one or both wheel bearings in the front are bad, but I was hoping someone might be able to help me diagnose the issue before I started buying parts etc. I do track the car and I know the heat can do some bad stuff to them, and I also hit a fairly significant pothole last spring that I know can damage them as well.

I'll post a video with the noise later today. Anybody have any opinions?

sillyboybmxer

It should make noise while turning a specfic way as well as increase noise with speed.
Put it on stands and shake to feel for play

cosmomiller

You did not say what kind of tires you got. Same ones? Is it possible those tires are making the noise? Top down?

duffman13

The new tires are BFG Rivals. The previous ones were RS-3s; according to every test I've read the Rivals should be significantly quieter.

chubbys2k

U should drive around 50mph or so and turn left/ right to hear if the noise lessens. Then u should know if its the wheel bearing or not. I forget but I think if u turn right and it quites down, its ur right wheel bearing

Sometimes lifting up the car and checking for play doesnt always work. Happened to me couple months ago... shook the wheel and there was no play but it was a bad wheel bearing. I knew because I did the method above and it worked.

slalom44

I had the same symptoms when my front wheel bearings went bad. I really couldn't tell by jacking up the car and checking for free play. I seemed to recall that it sounded worse when turning in one direction. The easiest way to confirm it was to jack up the car, remove the tire, caliper and rotor and spin the hub. With all that extra weight gone you will notice a gritty feel caused by slight pits in the bearings as you rotate the hub. Fresh bearings feel super smooth.

FYI - I ended up finding someone on EBay selling their low mileage knuckles for cheap. I just popped off the ball joints and steering knuckles on each knuckle, removed the ABS sensors, and swapped the entire knuckle on each side with the eBay ones. Within a few hours it was all done and I didn't even need to do a wheel alignment.

duffman13

Sounds good, I'm getting on a lift this weekend to do all my fluids, I'll be sure to pull the wheels and check the bearings as well. Regardless, if the bearings are bad I'm paying a shop to replace them. it's not worth my time.

I forgot to add, the alignment shop said my tie rod ends could stand to be replaced, I didn't know if that could cause any tire roar from the fronts scrubbing...

duffman13

So I got nothing out of driving and turning, the noise stays the same on either side and is just speed dependent. It starts around 40, hits some kind of harmonic at 50-60 that makes it pretty loud, and dissipates around 80 or is just overcome by other noise. I'll still check for bearing play tomorrow when I go do my fluids though.

I ordered inner and outer tie rod ends at the suggestion of the shop that did my alignment and will have them installed and re-aligned next weekend. The car is coming up on 100k anyway and has seen a decent amount of track and auto-X use so I figure it could use them anyway.

If that doesn't take care of it, I'm thinking doing the wheel bearings preventatively will be my next move. I just don't want to get to the point where I'm just throwing front suspension parts at this until the sound goes away.

sillyboybmxer

Wheel weights fall off???

duffman13

Not likely, I just had new tires mounted and balanced; the vibration was there before and after.