Do I have a bad wheel bearing or bad rotors?

Hi all, I need some advice. My 2013 AC 4x4 has about 71k miles on it, with a good amount of dirt road driving in its life, currently logging a lot of highway miles. At my last oil change the dealership said that front brake pads had about 60% left, but the rotors had some scoring on them. Still useable, but will probably need replacing sooner rather than later. My plan was to do new pads and rotors before winter. Still original brakes on the truck.

Anyway, I’ve been hearing a squeaking sound when I brake for a couple of weeks. Some searches on here show that squeaky brakes are pretty common on tacoma’s so I figured I’d run them until fall and swap them out before winter. However I’m now hearing the same squeaking noise when I’m not braking. It’s always while braking and now sometimes it’s when I hit a bump, sometimes just during normal diving without braking. It’s not constantly squeaking, just intermittently. The noise sounds cyclic/rotational if that makes sense which makes me think something in the wheel/hub assembly is rubbing. It sounds like it’s from front driver side wheel.

Is this a sign of a bad wheel bearing or could this be due to scored rotors/worn brakes? Something else? Could something just need grease and is making noise because it’s dry? I’m fine with having the brakes done if they’re the culprit, but I’d hate for it to not be the brakes and then have to have the new brakes taken apart again to access and replace a bearing or something in the hub. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks for looking!

 

Need a visual inspection. Could be
a small pebble stuck between the rotor and backing plate,
lack of grease on the brake pad retaining pins,
foreign substance (grains of sand, metal chips) between the rotor and pads
...

Bad wheel bearing tends to make a loud droning noise. You can also jack up the vehicle and rock the wheel to see if there's play. Make sure the lugnuts are tight before checking to avoid a false positive.

 

Thanks for the advice, I’ll do a visual inspection and check wheel for play. Based on this and the noise both while driving and braking I’m thinking it might be a foreign object or lack of lube. I haven’t noticed a loud droning noise but I’ll keep an ear out for it. I’ve been focusing on the squeak because it’s been driving me nuts.