Vibration/Grinding when turning left Topic is solved

Post by **rolsen11** » 09 Jun 2026, 09:08

There is a significant grinding sound and vibration whenever I begin to turn left even a little bit when driving at speed. The frequency goes up and down with vehicle speed. It sounds similar to driving over a rumble strip only less vibration than that. There is also a 'wub wub' sound that is always audible when moving at speed.

I just replaced the front right wheel bearing/hub believing that was the culprit, but there was no change. That one seemed to be worse off than the other bearing when I had the car up on a lift. Do I need to replace the other front wheel bearing too or could something else be causing this?

See video below for what it sounds like. You may need to turn the volume up to hear the rumble when I move the steering wheel left.

Georgeandkira · Post by **Georgeandkira** » 09 Jun 2026, 13:00

A CV joint in one of the axles?
Since "wub-wub" can be tires, try swapping them front to rear and see if anything changes.

How many miles are on your '04?

Vova585 · Post by **Vova585** » 09 Jun 2026, 13:54

Sounds more like a wheel bearing. Usually, when one is gone- all of them are not too far behind. It is decently easy to remove axle from hub and turn bearing by hand. Sometimes it might not show on typical "wiggle test".

Post by **rolsen11** » 09 Jun 2026, 15:38

Georgeandkira wrote: 09 Jun 2026, 13:00 A CV joint in one of the axles?
Since "wub-wub" can be tires, try swapping them front to rear and see if anything changes.

How many miles are on your '04?

163k. It could be a CV axle, but those are in pretty nice shape on this car as far as I can see. If replacing the other wheel bearing doesn't work this is something I can look into. Unfortunately I don't think rotating the tires will change anything since they match all the way around.

Vova585 wrote: 09 Jun 2026, 13:54 Sounds more like a wheel bearing. Usually, when one is gone- all of them are not too far behind. It is decently easy to remove axle from hub and turn bearing by hand. Sometimes it might not show on typical "wiggle test".

It sounds like textbook wheel bearing to me as well. I had the car on a lift last week and did the shakedown test on each wheel and the front right corner felt worst so I replaced that one, which turned out to be wrong. Agreed with the other 3 not being far behind, I've heard these R's tend to beat up wheel bearings so I'm gonna go forward with replacing the front left one too and see where it goes from there. If that doesn't do it then I'm gonna have to do some digging.

Post by **scot850** » 09 Jun 2026, 17:25

When you did the RHF wheel bearing, did you check the support bearing on the axle? It will give you a noise one the straight ahead and on turning, but not as bad as the wheel bearing will.

Try putting the car in the air and turn the RHF wheel and feel the axle bearing and feel if it has any roughness. A stethescope would be better.

Neil.

Post by **rolsen11** » 09 Jun 2026, 20:07

scot850 wrote: 09 Jun 2026, 17:25 When you did the RHF wheel bearing, did you check the support bearing on the axle? It will give you a noise one the straight ahead and on turning, but not as bad as the wheel bearing will.

Try putting the car in the air and turn the RHF wheel and feel the axle bearing and feel if it has any roughness. A stethescope would be better.

Neil.

Very good point! I forgot about that one.

Post by **rolsen11** » 11 Jun 2026, 23:06

Another wheel bearing is on order arriving next week. Will be more thorough with testing possible sources of the noise when it's in the air and then get the new bearing installed. I'll probably also install the new front rotors and pads that came with the car while I'm at it. I'm very hopeful that this will fix it, otherwise I'm gonna have to do some deep diagnosis to figure it out. A stethoscope would be pretty awesome to have for this if I can get one. Maybe my work has one I can borrow.

Post by **scot850** » 12 Jun 2026, 08:39

They are cheap to buy from the likes of Harbor Freight.

Another simple check is to make sure the dust shields on the front brakes are not broken and rubbing on the rotors or are bent chaffing against them. They can easily get bumped while working on the car.

Neil.

Post by **rolsen11** » 12 Jun 2026, 10:22

Oh wow, only 9 bucks from Harbor Freight! I know what I'm getting today. Thanks for the tip! I'll be sure to check the dust shields too while I'm there.

Post by **jonesg** » 12 Jun 2026, 15:46

I put my car on stands, removed front wheels, in drive and let the wheels spin,
put a stethascope on the knuckles and heard the bad bearing.
It set an ABS light but that went out on its own.