Wheel Bearing redux

Bill Putney's and Neil Nelson's recent posts regarding diagnosis of noisy
wheel bearings came just days too late.

I had already had the left front wheel bearing replaced on my Gen. 1 minivan
on the basis of my own diagnosis and confirmation by my mechanic. This was
before the recent group discussion on the subject.

After all, the howl got worse in a right turn, so the bad bearing had to be
on the left....everybody knows that, right?

After a post repair test drive, the noise was still there and, in fact, the
removed bearing had looked quite good.
The mechanic and I agreed that the next time by, we would get the van up on
the hoist, drive the front wheels, and get on the knuckles with a
stethoscope.

We did this yesterday. Pretty obvious. The new bearing on the left was
quiet. The old bearing on the right was very growly..

He replaced the right side bearing......noise gone. The old bearing looked
pretty ratty in the races.

 

Thanks for posting that feedback - I feel vindicated (yours plus my 7,
that makes 8 out of 8). 8^)

Bill Putney
(to reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my
address with "x")

 

Bill: You had indicated that you'd never used a stethoscope for wheel
bearings. If you get a chance, try it. The difference in my two bearings
was quite spectacular...and I'd been putting up with my "bad" one for weeks
so it wasn't really ready to tear the hub up yet....

 

Sorry guys. Using a friend's 'puter and forgot to set up an account for
me.....Jack Idler

 

Heh-heh...
You're pretty funny Bill.

I believe the whole point that Jack was making is that there is
no predicting which bearing might be bad based upon some
misconceived notion that a bearing will or will not make noise
depending on whether it's loaded or not.
Will a double row of ball bearings behave the same as a single
row of roller bearings? Will a single row of roller bearings
behave the same as a single row of ball bearings?
Could a lateral impact have the same effect as a vertical impact?
Do wheel bearings read the same issues of Popular Mechanics that
you do?
His original e-mail to me (and you I believe) pretty much related
that he'd wished he'd known to utilize the trick of the trade of
using a stethoscope to pinpoint which bearing was in fact making
noise. [Their] first attempt using your method did not meet with
success.
You're 7 for 7 because you have the advantage of knowing which
curb you bounced the wheel off of, that's all.

 

I assume you realize that this is not the OP (Isskr of the "96 Stratus:
Rumbling noise" thread) whose bearing was making noise when turning
*left*. According to Jack, Jack's original symptom was noise when
turning *right*. My claim is (and always was) that the bad bearing is
on the side that you turn to to turn the noise on, and on the side
opposite the side you turn to to turn the noise off. My method would
have said that Jack's right-side bearing was bad from the get-go.
Without benefit of either your stethoscope method or my method, he
replaced the left bearing first only to discover that the noise was
still there. Only after replacing the right side bearing did the noise
go away (exactly as my method would have predicted, and as your
stethoscope method would have also determined).

Re-read my posts in the other thread and you will see that I made *no*
claim about loaded or not loaded - you brought that up. I did say that
my method only works for the loaded bearing (because you have to be
driving the car down the road to use it), and that I had not been
successful at checking the bearing unloaded. I also said that I had
never used a stethoscope (on an unloaded bearing) as you had, and I
never criticized that as an invalid method, but simply stated that I had
not used that method, at which point you for some reason, in a very
defensive manner, chose to consider that a personal attack on you.

My method should work on either, as would your method no doubt.

Although I didn't explicitly say it, my method and experience has been
in the context of front wheel drive vehicles with ball bearings. All of
the vehicles with the 7 bearings I had replaced had FWD ball bearings,
as did Issr's Stratus, as does Jacks minivan (I think). I haven't seen
tapered roller bearings in a passenger vehicle in many years (not that
maybe they don't exist - just that 90+% of the passenger vehicles have
ball bearings, and 100% of my vehicles in the last 20 years have had
them).

I don't appreciate inuendo like that, but that appears part of your
intellectually dishonest nature (remember a few months ago when I said
you were a lot like Lloyd? - well you just demonstrated that again). I
quit reading Popular Science when I was in my late teens when I noticed
that they started recycling the same old "golly gee whizz!!" "scientific
breakthroughs" stories every ten years, and I have never read Popular
Mechanics.

Maybe you mean his original post here - I received no personal e-mail if
that's what you're saying. His original post here states that they used
the stethoscope method after the left bearing was replaced - yes. You
seem to think that I have claimed that there is no validity to the
stethoscope method, and that is flat out not true. In fact, I'm sure it
is a valid method. I simply said that I had never used it.

Fact is that what he has shown is that my method (the fact that the
noise was turned on when turning right indicated a bad right bearing)
and your stethoscope method - **BOTH** would have worked in telling him
which was the bad bearing. I have no problem with that. You seem to
think that only one of the two methods is valid and that they can't both
be valid - which is b.s. They are both valid methods. I am not
threatened by that.

Instead of recognizing that Jack realizes that both methods would have
pointed him to the bad right bearing, you're claiming that Jack is
saying your method works and mine doesn't - which he never said. Noise
on turning right indicates bad right bearing - that's what my method
would have predicted - that's what he found. End of story.

Flat out wrong. He said the noise occurred when turning to the right,
which according to my method means the right-side bearing is bad.
(Don't beleive me? Re-read his post.)

Again - you apparently are confusing Jack with the OP of the other
thread. Once again, the OP of the other thread had noise when turning
*left*. I told him that therefore his left bearing is most likely bad.
Jack (in his so-far only post about wheel bearings) said very clearly
that he had noise when turning **RIGHT**. My method would have
predicted a bad right bearing - which is what it turned out to be. So
once again, so you don't miss it this time - both your stethoscope
method and my "which way do you turn to make noise" method would have
worked.

Again - your dishonest nature is coming thru loud and clear. My
bearings failed from 150k+ miles of normal wear and tear (on all but one
of the vehicles at time of onset of noise) - brinnelling - not from
hitting curbs. And of those vehciles, I didn't obtain any of them until
they were over 100k.

Get your posters straight before mixing and matching the facts of two
different and opposite cases to discredit me. Fact is my method would
have nailed Jack's bad right-side bearing the first time out (as would
your stethoscope method).

Bill Putney
(to reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my
address with "x")

 

Thanks - if I had a stethoscope, I most likely would. I'm sure it is a
very good method. For some reason, Neil seems to equate my saying that
I've never used it to my saying that I don't consider it a valid method,
although all I've said about it is that I never used it. Go figure!

Correct me if I'm wrong - but you did say that your bearing made noise
when turning *right*, and that the bad bearing turned out to be the one
on the *right* side?

Bill Putney
(to reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my
address with "x")

 

Correct...my first attempt was based on hearing the growl in a right turn
and replacing the left bearing.
Second (successful) attempt was to replace the right bearing....verified
first with the stethoscope.

 

I assume you realize that this is not the OP (Isskr of the "96 Stratus:
Rumbling noise" thread) whose bearing was making noise when turning
*left*.[/QUOTE]

Yes, I do realize that. I know who Jack Idler is. I have a
number of e-mails from in in archive.

And my claim is that this method does not always work.
Sometimes the noise gets louder when the bearing is unloaded
(as you claim) and sometimes the bearing gets louder when loaded
(as Jack and his mechanic originally believed).
In hundreds of instances, my experience has been that it can
happen either way.

Amounts to a 50/50 crap shoot.

Except that your method has a 50% chance at being accurate.

Loaded as in the vehicle weight is on the bearing versus loaded
as in the vehicle weight being transfered to a particular corner
because the vehicle is going thru a turn. (weight transfer)

Why would I consider your comments to be a personal attack?
You are an amateur who has based his findings on a limited number
of samples/failures.

No, your method wouldn't have worked on the 97 Grand Am I worked
on last week that had a noisy left front wheel bearing where the
bearing got audibly louder when the vehicle was turning right.
(more load on the bearing)

As I said earlier, your experiences are very limited. That's
hardly a good reason to speak something as fact.

What is intellectually dishonest is to insist that all defective
wheel bearings will get noisier in situations where vehicle
dynamics serve to lessen the load on the bearing.

I should care because?

Misunderstanding on my part. I received an e-mail from Jack
Wednesday evening stating that the e-mail he had sent you had
bounced.

It's obvious that you had never done it that way, and I doubt
that you ever will until the wrong wheel bearing gets replaced in
the course of one of your repair jobs.

But one is -not- a valid method. That will become apparent to
you when the specific situation presents itself.

Not the end of the story because there are and have been plenty
of instances where the opposite has occurred. Your predictions
are merely based upon a limited number of experiences.

It's not a question of whether or not I believe you. It's a
matter of fact that your method is unreliable and has only been
successful for you because it has been successful for you.

Uh, no Bill. I'm not confusing Jack with the OP. As a matter of
fact, Jack and I have exchanged e-mails for quite some time now,
probably for over a year. Jack has been a lurker in these groups
for quite some time.

50/50 chance of being correct.

Another 50/50 chance.

I'm not missing anything. You on the other hand seem to have
trouble reconciling your seven instances of experience with my
hundreds of instances of experience.
My entire point is that "which way do you turn to make noise" is
a very unreliable method of determining the location of a bad
wheel bearing. Why do you think Jack's mechanic got tripped up
when they went to repair -his- mini-van? Do you honestly believe
that this was that mechanics first exposure to a noisy bearing?
Or, is it more plausible that he too was operating under some
preconceived notion of narrowly defined rules that apply in ALL
instances just as your claiming here.
The fact of the matter is; bearings sometimes get louder when
weight is transfered -to- them, bearings sometimes get louder
when weight is transfered -away- from them. There is NO way to
predict which is which so swerving the vehicle then becomes a
very unreliable method of making a determination.
Sorry if this contradicts -your- (limited) experiences, but
that's just the way it is, and nothing you claim is going to
change that.

What dishonesty you paranoid fruitcake?

I didn't have my posters confused.
I was however under the erroneous impression that Jack had
e-mailed you a copy of the same e-mail that I had received from
him a few days ago.

Only because of luck.

Strictly because I decided years ago that a more reliable method
was needed.

 

Bill, you really need to get one. A $6 cheapie at AutoZone will suffice.
You can sort out bad belt-driven accessories, separate the different types
of engine noises, and find bad wheel bearings very easily. It does not take
a large investment to get what you need. I'm sure there are more expensive
ones out there, but I'm impressed with how well my el-cheapo unit works.

--Geoff

 

Had the same experience with my '88 New Yorker last week - I'd have
SWORN it was the left bearing, but because the right one sounded a bit
rough with the stethoscope, and the right inner axle boot needed
replacing, AND I needed to replace the brake rotors anyway, I just bit
the bullet and replaced 'em both. The right one WAS a lot worse than
the left.
$345 worth of parts later, it's quiet, and it STOPS.

 

There is a very simple explanation why it can go both ways, and why on
double ball equipped vehicles it is even trcikier.

Double ball bearings can get rough on the inboard race, or the
outboard race. Turning one way loads one, turning the other way loads
the other.

With the old Timken style tapered rollers, the big race generally
went south first, so when you turned right, the left bearing got
noisy, and vice versa. However, if the outer bearing went bad first,
it could fool you too.

Balls and rollers behave differently in other ways as well. Rollers
are line contact - where balls are spot contact. Shifting the ball a
small amount can make it either hit or miss the roughness in the race
- while a roller will always be running on the rough area of the
race.

 

I appreciate that. Thanks, Geoff.

Bill Putney
(to reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my
address with "x")

 

I appreciate your honesty.

Amazing how I got 8 out of 8 "coin flips" (diagnoses) right when the
chance of getting any one of them right was only 50/50. I wonder what
the statistical chances of "guessing" 8 out of 8 coin flips right in
advance would be. The real amazing thing is that if a ninth correct
diagnosis occurred, it would still be claimed (by certain people) that I
had a 50/50 chance of being right on that one too, and so therefore that
the method is only 50/50. So what's the statistical likelihood of 9 out
of 9 coin flips?

Heh heh! It looks like some people not only don't understand free-body
diagrams and vector analysis, but neither do they understand statistics,
eh?

Bill Putney
(to reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my
address with "x")

 

As the source of the original thread, I figure I should post the results of
my car's diagnosis by my trusty mechanic.

Not sure who, but someone predicted that the right side front bearing was
bad. And it was. But the left one was also starting to grind.

So I had both bearings and hubs replaced, for a grand total of $460.

Makes for a much quieter ride now.

 

Neil,

You said at least 4 times that my method had a 50/50 chance of being
correct on any one diagnosis. Sorry, Neil, but you just can't sqaure
that with 8 out of 8 - statistically next to impossible to "guess" 8
successive coin tosses correctly, yet that is the equivalent of what you
are claiming that I did.

The fallible point that you keep trying to force into my argument (not
put there by me, I assure you) is the false claim that my method would
be accurate in 1 million out of 1 million times (in your words, 100% of
the time). I know that not to be the case, and I never said it was 100%
infallible. I do believe it to be accurate enough for the DIY'er
without a stethoscope who does enough hiway driving that he can
repeatedly run the test over a few days to gain confidence in the
conclusion before replacing the bearing that is making the noise.

There are indeed special cases that can and undoubtedly do occur that
will make this test fail. But with the loading (momemts as well as
linear vector forces) on the races (and the huge pressure to cause
brinnelling in known patterns), the vast majority of times, it will give
the right answer.

If I were to have a bearing go out next week and replace the wrong
bearing due to one of these special cases having occurred, it would be
no big deal - my psyche could handle it. I think you and others are
correct that the stethoscope method is a better test. I *never*
disparaged that method - I only said that I had never tried it. But
that doesn't make the success rate of *this* method anywhere near as bad
as 50/50, which you insist that it has to be. I especially think that
in a business situation, one would be wise to use a stethoscope to
pinpoint the bad bearing with greater certainty.

Have a nice day.

Bill Putney
(to reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my
address with "x")

 

Yep - I like my cars quiet too. Glad you got it resolved - at least we
were able to help in pointing you to the bearings.

Sorry your question got caught up in the frakas.

Thanks for posting what was found to be the problem.

Bill Putney
(to reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my
address with "x")

 

By my figuring just under 2 in a thousand. Now, that said, I'd like to see
this thread die out since the topic of the discussion has turned to proving
you are right and others are all wrong.

Bob

 

Thanks. Quite a bit better than 50/50, I'd say.

Quite the opposite, Bob. If that's what you got out of it then you
haven't been paying attention. Other than the 50/50 crap being
obviously wrong, I have pretty much agreed with ***everything***. If
that's trying to prove "the others all wrong", then I guess I'm guilty.

Bill Putney
(to reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my
address with "x")

 

Guess there aren't enough old timers left anymore, we use a LONG screwdriver
or sometimes even listen through a piece of old garden hose to isolate
noises,,

Ghhaaakkk who wants to listen to an old fart anyway !!

Ted