Hey Guys,

I did a search for "front wheel bearings" but did not return any information for the 3rd gens.

I'm getting a high pitched squeal coming from the drivers side wheel area. It sounds like it might be a wheel bearing, but, not sure. Its pretty faint, as I can only hear it when going along guardrails or a wall.

1) Are these easy to fix/replace?

Also, I noticed I have some grease coming from the outer CV boot, and looks like its been leaking very slowly for a while. Will this cause noise if the CV is not lubricated enough? (Seems like it would)

Thanks for any help.

 

it might be your brake too, i would check those first

 

Hmm I could do some break cleaner or something. I just replaced all my breaks and rotors within the last 10-12 months.

So know one knows how to replace the bearings? Im guessing I'll need to have a press to press them out, therefor I cant do them myself?

How can you inspect them to figure out if they are bad or not?

 

To check for a bad wheel bearing jack up the respective corner (get the tire off the ground) then grasp the tire at the top and bottom and use a push-pull motion. There should be no play. You can try that from the left and right too, but since this is the front wheel you will get play from the steering system (even with the steering wheel locked). So I would only go with the first method.

You may also get sound when first driving on it "cold" - kind of a wa wa wa sound.

 

Okay that makes sense. I tried doing that while it was on the ground, but, I think it was the suspension cycling up and down.

I noticed this sound actually when it wasn't cold.

 

That could be the case too I guess. I have always been told that you will first notice it when it's cold, but maybe yours is really shot or something? Or, maybe it isn't bad at all. I think it's pretty rare that these have issues up front.

This will sound like a dumb question, but have you ever jacked the vehicle down with a CV axle out of the spindle? Not sure why you would do that, but you never know. I hear that can toast a bearing really quick (at least that's what my Toyota manual said when I was looking at the bearings on my old Celica Alltrac Turbo.

 

Are you saying when jacking up the front so far that the CV comes out from the spindle?

I've done a lot of suspension work to this. I think I went through 3-5 different spring/spacer combo's and now the full blown 6" kit.

I did rebuild both axles with new boots/grease over the 2 years. I have had the entire front end in pieces a few times.

Something might have happened during all these tear downs...but, the last time I worked on the suspension was in June 2005, and now I'm starting to have this squeak as well as a "clunk" im getting from the strut assembly. Its taken a while, but, something is definetly going.