Hey guys

just finished fixing a coolant leak, and as soon as i take it back out on the road yet another thing goes wrong...

i was going around this corner, not that fast, and all of a sudden my drivers side front wheel starts to squeak, its a pulsating squeaking noise, and my passenger side front wheel is making a deep rumbeling noise, and my steering wheel is vibrating more than ususal. Both of these things happend at the same time.

now, my brake pads have maby a quarter of an inch left on them, if that, and i was thinking it was just telling me it needs to be replaced. i just want to make sure that its not my wheel bearing (sp?) going out.

what noises do you guys here when your wheel bearing is going out? does it sound kind of like what im describing?

help appreciated...
-Z

 

How many miles do you have on your car? Do you drive it "hard"?

 

Well..when the wheel bearing were going out in my last car, a toyota btw,
it sounded pretty much like someone was totruting a cat with a high pitched
voice. Also it would vibrate alot ALOT more than usual...I thought it was
the brake pads, but it actually turned out to the wheel bearings. Had I driven
it for a few more days, it probably would've heated up, melt from the heat
of the frictions and basically lock up.
So ya, that sounds like yours. Get it checked man!

 

wheels bearings to me sound like a low groan, that gets louders as you go faster

doesnt really sound like that much of a wheel bearing to me...

maybe a warped rotor?

maybe a bad CV?

 

i had a bad wheel bearing and it was very hi pitched, when i hit the brakes it went away

 

hmm .. front or rear?

ive only had rear ones go out... as a matter of fact I just got my new bearing today.. I am going to put it in this coming week.

my rear right is out and makes a low groaning noise.



Oh yea BTW , does the noise happen all the time? only when you turn?

 

the front bearings in my B5 sounded almost same as InsaneHatter described.

you could hear a very low wub wub wub wub around 20mph-70mph and it would get increasingly faster as your speed increased until the road noise drowned it out.

I had no additional vibrations.

 

Just to help you diagnose things, my 98.5 A4 1.8t FWD and the steering wheel doesn't shake in the slightest. Although mine is FWD so maybe the steering's different.

 

ok... i feel like an idiot...

driving home today, the noise got worse, and went away while braking, and got worse while turning one way...

i was thinking cv joint, and was so ready to shell out another 200 buks to have it replaced...

i pulled in my driveway, and i had some hardcore positive camber... uh-oh... somthing is REALLY wrong...

i went to pull the wheel off and there were only 4 lug bolts in there, that were really loose, and there were metal shavings all over the place, the wheel was about to fall off...

i guess i didnt tighten down the bolts enough while i was doing the coolant leak... i was about to slap myself... went and grabbed another lug, and all is right with the world...

thanks for the help tho, im replacing my blown k03 this long weekend, and installing a snub while im at it... ill let you guys know how it goes...

 

heh that'll do it good thing you noticed when you did