Replace wheel bearing

Diagnose and replace wheel bearing

Diagnosing a worn wheel bearing can be tricky. Many worn wheel bearings make noise

Change the geometry of your suspension and you change the load factors on your wheel bearings

but others don’t. When noise is present, the bearing can make any of these sounds:

• Humming at highway speeds.
• Grinding noise
• Knocking
• Growling noise

However, worn suspension components and tires can also make these same sounds. So your job is to isolate the noise. One way to do that is to drive the vehicle on a straight flat road and establish a baseline noise. Then turn the vehicle slightly (like you’re changing lanes) to see if the noise changes. Also, increase and decrease speed to see if the noise changes with speed.

Check wheel bearing endplay

Most wheel bearings begin to make noise long before they develop enough play to be felt at the wheels. When they’re that worn, you can sometimes feel a vibration in the steering wheel and notice an inability to keep the car going in a straight line. Sometimes, excessive wheel bearing wear can cause problems with the ABS wheel speed sensor, where you’ll get an intermittent ABS trouble light due to dropped out wheel speed sensor signals.

Check a wheel bearing with an automotive stethoscope

With the vehicle on jack stands, rotate the wheel by hand and listen for bearing noise. If you hear noise, use an automotive stethoscope to find the location of the noise. Touch the stethoscope probe to the steering knuckle. Read this post on how to use an automotive stethoscope

Check the wheel bearing for play

Grab the tire at the 2:00 and 6:00 o’clock position and pull and push to detect hub movement. Don’t confuse rubber movement with hub movement.

Check wheel bearing by placing hands at 12:00 and 6:00 and rocking wheel in and out

Then move your hands to the 3:00 and 6:00 o’clock positions and repeat.

Then try rocking at 3:00 and 9:00

Check for wheel bearing seal leakage

Many wheel bearings are permanently sealed. But if the seal deteriorates, the grease will leak out. So check for signs of grease leaking from the bearing. A wheel bearing with seals should never show signs of leakage. If it does, it’s bad. Any seal that’s leaking grease is a seal that’s also allowing water to enter the bearing.

How to replace a worn wheel bearing

If the hub bearing is a unit bearing assembly, you must replace the entire unit. Remove the axle nut (on a front-wheel drive vehicle), and then remove the hub retaining bolts. You

Wheel bearing hub assembly

may have to pry the old unit out from the knuckle.

If the wheel bearing is pressed into the knuckle, you must rent the proper tools (like a hub tamer)to remove it or remove the entire knuckle and take it to a machine shop and pay them to swap out the bearings.

Tightening the axle nut

Always replace the axle nut with a new part. The single biggest mistake you can make when reassembling the new bearing is to use an impact wrench to tighten the axle nut. The rapid impacts can chip the chrome plating off the roller or ball bearings and can damage the internal races. You won’t notice the damage right away, but the bearing will fail early due to damage you caused with your impact wrench.

So tighten the axle nut by hand using a ratchet and socket to seat the nut. Then use a torque wrench to set the pre-load according to spec. Failure to use a torque wrench can cause premature bearing failure!! Proper preload is critical! If the preload is less than spec, the bearing can separate.

What causes a wheel bearing to fail? See this post

©, 2015 Rick Muscoplat

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