How To Test For Wheel Bearing Noise

hey welcome so you're thinking you've got a bad wheel bearing on your vehicle well we've got three simple tests that you can perform to figure out which wheel bearing is actually bad now today we're working on a 2014 f-150 but these tests can be performed on just about any vehicle out there [Music] all right so our first test is going to come in the form of a test drive we want to first of all confirm the complaint of a groaning or a growling noise or a rare type of noise and we also want to try to isolate if the problem is coming from the front of the vehicle the rear of the vehicle and then we can also try to isolate side to side as well so what we really need to be doing here is getting up to usually about highway speed it seems that wheel bearings seem to make more noise the louder or they seem to get louder the faster that you're going and you also want to get out somewhere where you can kind of have some some freedom to drive the vehicle as needed um so we're going to get out to the out to the country here and and get some room and then you also want to make sure that you uh you know you get rid of any noises any distractions in the in the vehicle now that is some peace and quiet but you know probably not completely unnecessary but seriously no you want to turn down the radio and uh you know turn off the uh the blower motor that kind of thing so i guess we can pick them back up now real funny mike well you know i we got to get rid of noise and man you need to stop singing those show tunes all the time all right all right so with all those noises and distractions gone uh we're gonna be listening for that noise and this really this is only one of the three complaints that we often see with wheel bearings we have noises we have actual play in the wheel bearing itself looseness and then we could have abs concerns as well but our complaint today is a noise when driving down the road again that growling or groaning sound that's happening so we're going to get here to a road that's nice and smooth that's going to allow us to rock the vehicle from side to side and what we're going to attempt to do here is get the weight to shift either to the left side or to the right side of the vehicle and we're going to try to listen for one of the directions being louder now typically speaking when you roll the vehicle and you get it onto the right side the weight over to the right side and that bearing were to get louder that typically means that that is the right wheel bearing that's in fact failing but it's not always the case we'll get into a little bit further of a test to do with that when we get back to the shop to really be able to confirm it but what we're listening for now and i'll have to stop talking here for a second as i listen but we're going to try to isolate front to back and we're going to try to isolate that side to side so we've got a nice smooth blacktop road coming up here that we should be able to really be able to listen for this noise and again we're getting up to highway speed roughly that 50 miles an hour and i like to turn my head like this so i can listen one ear to the front one ear to the back sounds like the noise is in the front hear that kind of like growling or groaning noise and then when conditions are safe for it we're going to start to swerve the vehicle left to right you know really trying to trying to listen in on that noise as we get the weight shifting [Applause] so it seems like when we shifted the vehicle steering to the right getting the weight of the vehicle to go onto the left front wheel bearing it does seem like it's getting louder when it's going that direction which tells me that we probably have a left front wheel bearing that's failing now we're going to want to get this thing back to the shop get the front end up in the air and you know verify that that's actually the problem but it does sound like that left front is failing based upon this test but let's get back to the shop and do the next test [Music] all right so with the vehicle safely put up into the air uh you know sitting on jack stands that don't have bad welds or anything like that we're gonna check this wheel bearing for play remember that's one of the three symptoms that we're looking at for a bad wheel bearing is that physical play so we're gonna grab the tire at 12 o'clock and six o'clock and we're gonna watch or we're gonna see if it's got play but you gotta also make sure that you're not dealing with maybe ball joint play or something else in the system um causing that play so sometimes it's nice to have somebody under the vehicle being able to see the back side of what you're what you're shaking here so you can see say hi to ryan everybody wave ryan you you fell you might have fell fall asleep down there uh but what we're gonna do we're gonna start we're gonna grab it at 12 o'clock and we're gonna grab it at six o'clock and we're gonna shake in and out we're going like this with the tire and we're feeling for any play in that wheel bearing now this is a four wheel drive truck with the axle shaft coming through here this is a hub style bearing on here so there should be no play whatsoever now if you're dealing with a 20 some year old truck that's using a tapered style bearing well that's a different story there's a little bit of play on those but this thing should have no play top to bottom and this one does not there's no play on here at all now if you take a look at this vehicle this happened to be on a dodge dart with a bad wheel bearing you can see how much play there is in that tire top bottom that one was noisy and had play now it's time to spin this thing like we were doing when we were driving it down the road where we heard the noise but the issue with ford trucks when you try to spin them is you're spinning the axle shaft as well and you can see here i can't really get it spinning very quickly while there's a really easy tip that you can do here when you start the vehicle up and it's in park or really in any gear and it's in two-wheel drive vacuum will be applied to the iwe or the hub actuator releasing the axle shaft and allowing this thing to free spin so let's do that now this with the truck running it does make it a little harder to hear noise coming from the bearing so you want to use the stethoscope when you do this a cheap stethoscope from any local parts store will work for this but you can see just how much easier it is for me to spin the tire now and with that stethoscope applied we can listen to that noise and again this is probably a two-person job making it easier one person spinning the tire and the other listening that sounds like our problem i think that should about do it we got this thing diagnosed it's time to uh time to put it in so join us for the next video where we're putting it in so uh ryan did you you sleep i'm still here oh okay so he's still here i'm glad you guys stayed with me this whole time i really appreciate everybody watching and uh thank you so much if you have not already please subscribe to our channel clicking on that little bell icon that way you get notified when the next video comes out when the replacement video in fact comes out you'll get a notification for that also make sure to smash that thumbs up button if this video was helpful or beneficial to you check us out on social media as well facebook and all the others links below for that in the description if you're looking for a written step-by-step procedure on how to perform this this diagnosis link down in the description for that as well we got it all written out including a link to where to buy the bearing that we're going to be putting in here help support our channel as well if you buy through that link so that would be cool again guys i really appreciate you watching thank you so much for sticking with us and as always happy wrenching everyone thank you [Music] you

Channel: GoTech

Views: 99,799

Keywords: wheel bearing, wheel bearing noise, car repair, wheel bearing noise while driving, how to check a wheel bearing, how to find a bad wheel bearing, how to tell if a wheel bearing is bad, bad wheel bearing noise, how to diagnose a bad wheel bearing, noisy wheel bearing, diagnose wheel bearing, tire noise or wheel bearing, wheel bearing replacement, wheel bearing symptoms, wheel bearing grinding noise, wheel bearing failure, wheel bearing noise when turning, bad wheel bearing

Id: P5bfOfLCruI

Length: 8min 24sec (504 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 03 2022