sibanez

A few days ago I noticed an odd smell from my driver-side front wheel . . having just taken the truck to the off-road park, I figured I must have smoke the rotor. Also, the wheel had more than normal brake dust on it so I stopped driving it and ordered two new rotors. I did notice that the entire wheel was hot, including the lug nuts, hub and the base of the axle. In addition, there was an odd smell coming from that side of the car.

Well, I installed new rotors today in the front and took her for a test drive. After three miles at roughly 45 mph, I stopped and felt the wheel. The hub on the driver-side front was warm, while the passenger side wasn’t. After another 20 minutes of driving at 60mph, I stopped and noticed the driver-side hub was now very warm and the entire wheel was again warm to the touch. The passenger-side hub was warm, but nowhere near as warm as the driver side.

I’m thinking now that it’s a wheel bearing, but it seems way early for that. I have a 2.5 inch lift up front (Downey coilover) with 265/75/17 Nitto Terragrapplers, which have been on the truck for a little under 10k miles. The truck has 88k miles on it, majority of that being highway. Any ideas? It’s a 2003 V8 4x4 4Runner.