Urgency of bearing replacement?

[tjxtreme]

I have some rear wheel squeaking and have ruled out the brake and parking brake systems (took caliper and disc off, still squeaked from further inside).

 

When jacked up, the wheel doesn't wobble at all... just the horror movie shrieking noise.

 

Seeing as I just spent a lot on this car, how long can I wait on this? I don't mind the noise too much, but when does it become a safety issue?

 

Thanks,

Andrew

[idosubaru]

Vehicle, miles, FWD, AWD.....????

When it comes down to it though bearings aren't a good thing to take a chance on really. Once they start to fail it doesn't take long for heat to destroy the grease and metal.

 

Are you sure it's not a CV, wheel, driveshaft bearing, exhaust, or strut? Wheel bearings are usually described as a low pitch "road noise", or "growl" but you're saying high pitched. If it does it all the time, check both rear wheel center areas after a long time of driving and hearing it - the side with the noise (bad bearings) should be hotter than the side without. Of course that will depend on how bad they are, but they should be heating up.

 

If you can definitely hear it on one side that helps rule out a lot of centrally located things like the driveshaft, rear diff, and carrier bearing.

 

That being said...I have driven my Legacy for a few months and 5,000 - 10,000 miles on a bad rear wheel bearing so far. Ordered the part next week and it should be here any day.

 

Someone mentioned recently that they finally detected a bad wheel bearing by jacking the car up and feeling the strut springs while rotating the wheel. The bearing wouldn't show any signs otherwise, but he could feel the vibrations through the strut springs to finally narrow it down to the bearing.

[tjxtreme]

'99 Leg outback AWD, 146k miles

 

Its definitely something right inside the rear wheel, because I jacked it up, took off the caliper and rotor. When I rotated the remaining wheel parts, I could hear the shrieking coming from inside all of that stuff.... sorry I don't know the proper terms for that (whatever's left of the wheel assembly after the wheel, caliper, and rotor are removed).

 

Thanks,

Andrew

[davebugs]

Parking brake shoes would be a good guess. And/or rust chunks in around them.

 

Dave

[tjxtreme]

I initially suspected parking brake, since the squealing goes away if I engage a couple clicks of the p-brake while slowly moving...

 

But when it still squealed after removing the rotor, I lost hope in that theory.

 

Could it still be a parking brake issue?

[idosubaru]

i think it could still be something else. sounds brake related. newer generation subaru's (like yours) don't use the same caliper for e-brake and your normal pedal operated brakes. so there's still a chance something is jacked up in there. with the rotor removed you should have seen the ebrake components right?

 

then there's always the possibility of the ABS tone ring, sensor, or hub being rusty....check the clearances of everything and see if something might be rubbing. or a rock or something else could be stuck somewhere too?

[EVOthis]

on this topic......the other day i got a car from a customer who complained about a horrid grinding/squealing noise......got the car in the air and wouldnt you know i found a rock between the backing plate and the rotor.....

[aircraft engineer]

Assuming, of course, that your pads aren't worn enough to make the shriekers contact the rotors.

 

(but you took off the discs + pads) It's probably a wheel bearing. There's not much else and you hear the sound rotating the hub with the rotor off.

 

Time to go to a JY and get a hub/housing/bearing assy and put it on - relatively simple if you can get the pinch bolt (the long one) off. 2 strut bolts (take off last), pinch bolt, trailing arm bolt, axle nut. take it apart and put the replacement on. hour or so for the old one off/on plus 30 mins maybe for the JY pull plus gas, plus driving time...(since you pulled the rotor before, you know what to expect there)