Wheel squealing at speed....bearing?

IIGood · May 7, 2009

Started noticing today that my driver's side wheel squeals a bit while at speed...and I'm not on the brakes. Could that be typically indicative of a wheel bearing going bad? The car does have 97K miles on it.

d.r.moss · May 7, 2009

You can tell if it is a wheel bearing if you lift up the car and the tire will wobble a little bit. Or if you are driving, turning side to side will quite it up and make it louder, depending on if you are putting load on that tire or not. Usually a wheel bearing will howell not squeal. The only times I have heard one squeal is my truck and the tires were to load to hear the howell so it wore down to nothing, metal on metal, and it was constant and undrivable. I would probly look into something else.

ran260gt · May 7, 2009

IIGood said:
Started noticing today that my driver's side wheel squeals a bit while at speed...and I'm not on the brakes. Could that be typically indicative of a wheel bearing going bad? The car does have 97K miles on it.

Is it a kind of chirpy sound ? if it is , it is a bad rear wheel bearing !

bboylobo · May 8, 2009

sure its not a throw out bearing? try dropping the and engaging to clutch to see if it affects the noise at all.

GDTrumbo · May 8, 2009

At highway speed, lightly pull up on the E-brake & see if it stops. See if it's brake related. Aftermarket anti rattle clips on the rear brake pads can cause this. I'll never buy aftermarket replacements for these parts again.

GT

IIGood · May 9, 2009

Okay...facts and findings:

-The entire rear end was recently replaced. The car was wrecked in January; the rear was part of the repair; I just got the car back last week.
-Caster/camber plates were also recently installed.
-The squeal seems to appear between 20-40 mph.
-Applying the brakes does not have any impact on the noise.
-Engaging/disengaging the clutch does not have any impact either.

I'm pretty sure it's coming from the driver's side of the car, and I wanna say it's coming from up front but I can't be totally sure of that.

Twista · May 9, 2009

I just had my front wheel hub (bearings) replaced. there was no squeal sound. My sympthoms was:

Howling sound @ 35mph that w as louder than any car exhaust i ever had.

35+ mph and up the howling got ridiculously louder.

60+ mph-80mph i thought my front tire was going to pop off just from the sound alone

A squealing sounds like the ball joint which i just got replaced.. or it could be the brakes ran all the way down?

IIGood · May 9, 2009

...and another finding...I think it might be the rear wheel after all, since that wheel is the dirtiest of the four. Something's gotta be rubbing back there. I did the rear pads about 60K miles ago (when the rear was replaced they just swapped the existing brakes over) and have a new set waiting to go on, though it doesn't look like they're too drastically low right now.

I'll swap 'em out tomorrow and see if that changes anything.

IIGood · May 26, 2009

I've replaced the rear pads and rotors and the squealing has stopped, fortunately. The inner pad on the wheel in question had no material left on it. But there's something still rubbing though; that wheel is still producing an excessive amount of dust, I can smell a metallic smell from the wheel, and when I park the wheel is giving off a lot of heat.

I'm wondering if that caliper is done? It didn't seem to be too difficult to wind the piston back in.

mustang50v8 · May 26, 2009

sounds alot like a bad caliper to me. i would replace that.

squeak93 · May 26, 2009

Your rear caliper has hung up. Ford has major issues with calipers hangning up *(mostly on 04+ f150's, mines done it twice). Swap that and I bet your issue is solved.

IIGood · May 26, 2009

Ugh. I should've had the foresight to order new calipers when I ordered the rotors. *sigh* Or just should've gone all out and gotten the larger rear brake kit. Ah well.

What really boggles me is the timing of this happening. Just after I got it back from the body shop (the whole rear end assembly was replaced), this started happening.

Well, at least the whole rear brake setup will be new too...

squeak93 · May 26, 2009

Double and triple check all the brake lines to ensure one isn't kinked or bent to cause excess pressure.

IIGood · Jun 6, 2009

As a final update...forgot to mention before...

It looks like the caliper was at fault. I swapped the caliper last weekend and haven't had any of the prior symptoms anymore. Tricky job getting that caliper changed, but it got done...bled out the brake system/let the old fluid drain out and all is good now.

Only minor issue now is that the surface of the new caliper is rusting and looks like crap now. Boo.

Wheel squealing at speed....bearing?

IIGood

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