Might be wheel bearing?

[sussman00]

My 98 OBW (175K) now has a noticible vibration coming from the rear drivers side area when making hard right hand turns. When driving straight there is no unusual vibration or noise.

 

I thought this might be a wheel bearing so I jacked up the rear and inspected the wheel for any play. The wheel is on there solidly and I was not able to detect any movement when pushing and pulling on opposite sides of the tire.

 

I also spun the tire and tried to detect any vibration or noise out of the ordinary. Everything sounds fine and I could not feel any vibration when holding the spring. I checked the passenger side rear wheel as well and didn't find anything out of the ordinary.

 

The tires are all matching and have been rotated recently.

 

Any thoughts on whether a bad wheel bearing can start out with just vibrations during turns?

 

Thanks,

 

Seb

[Durania]

Did you try to move the wheel by grabbing the top and bottom of the tire to check for movement that way?

 

How long has it been since the tires were rotated? May need to have them rebalanced.

[idosubaru]

Newer Subaru's are notorious for wheel bearing issues. They fail all the time, way more than older gen stuff.

 

What makes it even more fun is what you're experiencing - I've replaced gobs of them and other than noise I'm fairly certain not one has ever had any typical wheel bearing signs. They seem to hold tight for a very long time - like many thousands of miles. Grab, shake, rotate, listen, I even have a stethocope and somehow they just never show any signs when you jack them up. I've had them feel terrible once I remove them, but on the car was nothing, zip.

 

I have been able to see some extra generated heat with a infrared temp gun, takes quite a few readings to get a feel for it though as the heat dissipating is quite substantial and the heat changes drastically over the cross section of the rotor/hub - small movements make large changes in temps making it hard to compare side to side - but it can be done.

 

my guess, based on replacing tons of EJ wheel bearings, is wheel bearings.

[Twitch de la Brat]

Newer Subaru's are notorious for wheel bearing issues. They fail all the time, way more than older gen stuff.

 

What makes it even more fun is what you're experiencing - I've replaced gobs of them and other than noise I'm fairly certain not one has ever had any typical wheel bearing signs. They seem to hold tight for a very long time - like many thousands of miles. Grab, shake, rotate, listen, I even have a stethocope and somehow they just never show any signs when you jack them up. I've had them feel terrible once I remove them, but on the car was nothing, zip.

 

I have been able to see some extra generated heat with a infrared temp gun, takes quite a few readings to get a feel for it though as the heat dissipating is quite substantial and the heat changes drastically over the cross section of the rotor/hub - small movements make large changes in temps making it hard to compare side to side - but it can be done.

 

my guess, based on replacing tons of EJ wheel bearings, is wheel bearings.

 

Agreed ^^^^

 

If you let it go until it starts making noise while driving straight you'll most

likely need to replace the hub assembly as well as the bearing.

 

Twitch

[JT95]

Oh the joys of Subaru wheel bearings.

 

I just had a rear wheel bearing replaced on my 99 Impreza. It started out as a low hum/vibration noise and got louder (but not grindy sounding) until I pulled the hub and had a shop replace it. BTW, I will never fool with pulling a rear hub off that car again...PITA.

 

The mechanic who pressed the new bearing in my hub said the bad one he pressed out was a replacement one. So, with 125k miles, my car has its third bearing in that rear wheel.

 

I owned a 95 Legacy before this and had to replace the bearings on both front wheels, but it had really high mileage.

[SubieDaddy80]

Whoa! Gary has it down to a science! Thats what I call experience!

 

 

Newer Subaru's are notorious for wheel bearing issues. They fail all the time, way more than older gen stuff.

 

What makes it even more fun is what you're experiencing - I've replaced gobs of them and other than noise I'm fairly certain not one has ever had any typical wheel bearing signs. They seem to hold tight for a very long time - like many thousands of miles. Grab, shake, rotate, listen, I even have a stethocope and somehow they just never show any signs when you jack them up. I've had them feel terrible once I remove them, but on the car was nothing, zip.

 

I have been able to see some extra generated heat with a infrared temp gun, takes quite a few readings to get a feel for it though as the heat dissipating is quite substantial and the heat changes drastically over the cross section of the rotor/hub - small movements make large changes in temps making it hard to compare side to side - but it can be done.

 

my guess, based on replacing tons of EJ wheel bearings, is wheel bearings.

[sussman00]

Thanks for the thoughts everyone. You confirmed my suspicions. Looks like I've got another project to plan for!