Strange rubbing sound after hitting a large mud puddle

Hello all! I am new here and needed some advice. I have a 2016 Tacoma Limited, w/ a 3" lift kit and 24" Fuel tires. (These were all on the truck when I bought it). I bought the truck about 10 months ago, and it now has about 60,500 miles on it. It had 53,xxx when I bought it, so I have put fairly low miles on it over the last 10 months. I have kept it serviced, so I know it has been taken care of since I bought it. My question for the group is this, I recently went through a rather large mud puddle on Tuesday the 5th, and right afterwards, I started to hear a strange rubbing like sound, that I thought was coming from the wheels. I pulled over and got out my flashlight and took a look around underneath, but didn't see anything out of the ordinary. I figured it was maybe wet rotors or brake pads, so I wrote if off. When I went to leave for work the next morning, I noticed that the strange sound was still there. The thing is though, is that it only makes the sound between 1-35 mph. Once I get to about 30-ish, or 35 - 40, the sound goes away completely. I am not sure if it is coming from the tires at this rate, or if it's coming from the engine, or transmission, or where. Has anyone experienced this, or maybe have a clue as to what this might be? Any ideas or thoughts would be appreciated. I hate the thought of my truck having a major issue this close to Christmas. Thanks in advance.

 

Sounds like a bad CV axle, are your boots jacked up because of that lift? Water may have gotten in and made things worse.

 

Not sure. The truck has seemed to fine until the mud puddle. I'll probably have to take it in and have it looked at. Thanks for the input. Appreciated.

 

Welcome to TW!

 

Thank you. Good to be here.

 

I would suspect a compromised wheel bearing.

Options to check is feel the rims after a drive to see if one is warmer than the other, check for play in one(unlikely at this stage), spin a wheel in the air with a hand on the spring and feel for vibrations or the professional most sure way is put the truck solidly and securely on stands in 4wd with traction control off and have someone spin it up to speed locked into 2nd gear and listen to each wheel bearing on a bolt nearby to listen for roughness. Don't apply the brakes when doing that. Just slip it in neutral when done and let everything spin down slowly or it could topple off the stands

 

My first thought would be something along the lines of a piece of debris hidden in the water got stuck somewhere. Or possibly something got knocked loose by the force of the water.. maybe a wheel well liner or one of the rubber flaps between the front wheel well and engine bay

 

UPDATE!!! So I took the truck into Les Schwab, and when I had gone through the large mud puddle, a piece of plastic, I believe he called it the "dust shield," got bent up and backwards, causing it to rub against the Drive Shaft, hence causing the rubbing sound. He was able to bend it back and out of the way ultimately fixing my 'problem.' I suppose I can go under there and cut it off so it doesn't happen again. Shout out to Keith at the Edgewood Les Schwab location. Dude was super cool about the whole thing, even me wasting his time with such a mundane problem. (My words, not his).

 

I did pretty much the same thing as you last night - I went through a large puddle a little too fast. I noticed the same kind of sound you described and also thought it might be coming from the brakes/wheels. After reading your post I decided to get back under the truck and inspect the driveshaft - lo and behold, I found a bit of sheet metal bent out of place rubbing against the driveshaft! Here's a pic for reference:

I bent it back and away from the drive shaft, and no longer hear any weird noises. Figured I'd post here too in case it happens to anyone else and they come looking!