Loud humming noise
 

Ok for a couple weeks now ive had a loud humming noise coming from the rear drivers side of the car. The noise is there when im driving straight and gets louder when im turning left but goes away when im turning right. The noise also gets louder the faster i go...any ideas?

Sounds like a bad wheel bearing. Not super cheap to pay someone to fix but if you've got a friend with (or can borrow) a set of tools like this you can do it yourself (that's the exact kit I bought and used to do my fronts). The independent place I called estimated $1,000 to fix both my fronts.

+1..............

From what i read so far i agree its probably a wheel bearing. Mine is one of the rear bearings going out. When i turn left the sound gets really loud and when i turn right the sound goes away...based on that would u say its the right bearing or the left bearing thats having the problem.

I'm not sure just turning will give you a great idea of which bearing it is. My guess is that one side of the bearing is going out, so estimating which bearing by which turn makes it louder will only give you an idea of the bad side of the bearing, not which bearing... if that makes sense.

Have somebody sit in the rear seat and listen closely to which side is making the humming noise. That would be my best way of doing it.

It will get louder and there will then be no question which side it is on. You may want to wait on it getting worse. bad wheel bearings do heat up and possibly seize the ABS sensor into the wheel bearing housing, but that's not too bad because you can disconnect the sensor wiring harness in the wheel well and not worry about removing the sensor from the housing (i recommend never removing them since you may not get them back in to the correct depth). Remove the wheel bearing housing, with hub still in old bearing, and take it to the local shop, with sensor still in, with your new wheel bearing and pay them $20 to press it out and in. and press the hub in and out of the bearing. note to mark your suspension adjustments before removing so you get the alignment back pretty closely. You need a bearing kit which includes the stretch bolt. check your CV boots on the side you are doing just in case you get in there and find that needs to be done, too.

Ok thanks...will do.

IIRC, those tools will help you remove the bearing, but to install on a B5, you need a press. I went through this recently with my 2000. On a B6 the tools work fine.

I was able to use the same tools to 'tighten' (press) the new bearing back in.

Did your tools allow you to press the hub back into the bearing, or did you use other tools for that?