Wheel/Tire Sound

Hello, I recently have been driving and started hearing a roaring sound coming from my front driver side wheel area almost sounds like i put new mud terrain tires on. I immediately thought it was a bad wheel bearing but I checked everything, jacked it up the wheel had no play at all, it doesn’t vibrate when i drive, it doesn’t pull in either direction, and also doesn’t change tone when turning. It just gets louder the faster i go. I also checked the cv which had very minimal/normal play from the inner side of the axle. Can anyone think of anything that it could be before I take it somewhere? Any help would be great. Thanks!

 

Lift the front of the truck and spin each wheel by hand while holding the knuckle. Any roughness felt through the knuckle is a bad bearing. It should be smooth and quiet. Compare side to side. The louder side is the bad bearing

 

Agreed. My driver's side started making a similar noise and I assumed it was the needle bearing so I bought an ECGS bushing. While that *might* have been part of the problem, the wheel bearing was failing and a new CV axle fixed it.

 

How many miles do you have? My 04 4runner was doing this last year and turned out to be a worn wheel bearing. It had about 150k on it then.

 

I have 41k. I live in jersey with a lot of salt but it still seems early for a wheel bearing to go

 

Yeah I would agree with that.

 

Thanks for the response. I just did this and I don’t feel anything or hear anything on either side. I have absolutely no idea what it could be

 

I also confirm that these trucks are notoriously hard to diagnose bearing doing the “grab and rock” method.

@b_r_o method is about the best.

What most don’t realize is the wheel/bearing isn’t under load. So it doesn’t respond the same when jacked up with no load on it. The fact the the CV is turning at the same time doesn’t help either.

 

Yea it can be very subtle too, not always going to feel the roughness

Might be something else causing the noise

 

Drive at speed you hear noise. Tune in on it. Quickly swerve left and then back straight. Swerve quickly right. Ok. If noise abated on left swerve, almost guaranteed bad wheel bearing on left.

 

I tested that out too. Swerved both ways at neighborhood and highway speeds. Both times there wasn’t any change when turning any direction.