2006 Toyota Tacoma noise

Hello,
I am hoping someone may have some insight into a noise coming from the front (drivers side I believe) of my Toyota Tacoma. I have had the noise for some time. At first I thought it was tire noise but have since have decided that is not the case. As I said the noise sounds like tire noise on rougher pavement. Whenever I turn the steeriing wheel slightly to the left it disappears completely. At approximately 80,000 mile I had the wheel bearings in both front wheels replaced at a Toyota dealer.

 

It sounds like a wheel bearing. Mine was doing the same thing. How many miles are on the current bearings? Only way to tell is jack up front end and check for slop and spin the wheel to see if it makes noise. I pulled the calipers when I checked mine to be sure I wasn't hearing the pads rubbing the rotors.

 

Thanks for the information. I had both front wheel bearings replaced around 60,000. I originally thought 80,000 but after checking 60,000. I now have 105,000 on the truck. Seems to me that wheel bearings should last longer than 45,000 miles. I think I will take your advice and jack it up to see if I can hear any bearing noise.

 

From what I have read around here, if turning the wheel slightly makes the noise go away, its 99% chance its the bearing.

 

I agree 100%. Are you doing lots of wheeling/crawling? Other hard use?

 

I had the same thing on my 06, and it was the front wheel bearings.

 

As for off road use, this truck has never been offroad. I guess I would understand if I was using rock crawling etc. I have had since new and have had 99% of any work completed at a Toyota dealer. If I could find an independent mechanic that I had confidence in then I may switch.

 

Definitely the front wheel bearing. My front passenger one just shit the bed again and it was replaced 38000 miles ago. The same one before that only lasted 42k miles.

Needless to say, wheel bearings are a weak point on these trucks. Mine also did what yours does whenever you turn it would go away. My passenger one was bad and it would hum loudest from 40-55mph. Whenever i would turn left, the noise would go away.

 

I would. All day, every day.

Don't know where you are. But if in an area large enough to have car shows (like at a burger joint) you might try hitting some of those. See a nice ride you like, ask them if they do their own mechanical work. Many will. But if not, ask who they use.

You might post in one of our regional forums as well. It's possible someone close to you knows of a good resource.

This thread could be of interest to you https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads...e-driving-as-if-i-have-off-road-tires.526118/

And a member in that thread, @BamaToy1997 has a packaged solution for 1st gens, making it fairly easy for DIY replacement. You might contact him to see if he has similar for 2nd gen. I cannot recall at the moment.

Good luck. And I agree. 45-60k for bearing life is nuts.

 

Thanks everyone for all of the information. As I said I plan to jack it up tomorrow and see if I can
ascertain if it is a wheel bearing. Sounds as though from what I have read here, it is a good bet.

 

I would jack both sides up and if one is harder to turn then the other, that can also be indicative that the wheel bearing is bad. it should turn easily without any gritty noise

 

Make sure your pads are not touching the rotors when you spin the wheels. I had a hard time telling what was pad noise as opposed to the bad bearing. You might be able to pry the pads back a bit to get them off the rotors with a screwdriver or small pry bar. I just wanted to be sure of what i was hearing when i checked mine. The caliper is off in minutes with only having to remove 2 bolts. You could also just pull the pads themselves if the pins holding them in come out of the caliper easily. They get corroded and have a tendency to seize in place if they haven’t been removed recently.

 

Grab the knuckle while spinning the wheel. If it is bad you will feel the roughness in your hand.

 

This is a good idea, never thought to do this

 

I had an older tech show me that years ago. You'd be surprised how effective it is. Customers will come in describing a bearing noise, I can find it without even going on a test drive

 

Cool idea. Will remember for future.

 

Hello, I wonder if anyone has any other ideas about the front end noise in my 2006 Tacoma. As suggested I jacked up each front wheel thinking I would be able to hear a noise and identify it as a bad wheel bearing. No such luck. I jacked up each side independently and spun the wheels and did not hear anything unusual. I also place my hand on the steering knuckle and did not feel any vibration at all. This makes some sense as I said before the front wheel bearings were replaced approximately 40,000 miles ago. so I am back to square one. If anyone has additional ideas, comments I would appreciate hearing them. I am anticipating taking to a shop and who knows where that will go. I do not have faith in a local dealer or shop to diagnose the problem. I am liable to get some expensive guess work completed on this issue. I recently began posting here so I appreciate the attention.

 

I have a 2005 Tacoma 4x4.

Not sure I can help with the front-end noise mystery; I had humming noise in the front end a couple of times. It started at 20 mph, got louder until, at 55 mph the pitch increased and it went out of hearing range. The noise was not related to the engine or transmission; the noise was the same coasting down a hill in neutral. I didn't notice any vibration, but I didn't let it get bad.

These repairs corrected it: I have had to replace both front brake calipers twice (Jan 2016 and again in Mar 2018) and the right front wheel bearing twice (Sept 2017 & Mar 2018) and right front hub assembly (Mar 2018). The truck has only 137K on it, is now 13 years old, is driven gently, never hit anything substantial and no accidents, maintained faithfully, and has never been off-road.

It seems like wheel bearings and brake calipers should last longer. Has anyone else had these fail so soon?

The dealer (the only one who has ever repaired it) told me that the first set of calipers were after-market. The new ones meet Toyota specs-I insisted upon it. I don't know, but perhaps the same was true of the wheel bearing (probably after-market) that lasted only 6 months (6,000 miles)!

 

Wheel bearings don't go bad from off road use only. A common problem in hub repairs is over-tightening the axle nut, which causes excessive stress during normal operation. If you didn't install it, this is what I suspect happened. There are torque specs to follow. That, or cheap Chinese parts were used, which I have seen as a growing problem; lots of defects roll off the assembly lines. A normal hub should last about 80-100k miles if it's OE quality and you don't go off road every weekend.

 

See if rotating your tires helps.