When driving my 2003 Volvo XC70, it sounds as if I am driving on nobby mud tires. The sound (rrrrrrrrrrrr) gets faster and slower with the cars acceleration and deceleration. I know that the sound isn’t caused by the tires because I am running on Micheline Harmony tires which are fairly quite. I am concerned that it may be a gear going bad. Any suggestions among all of you?
Possible areas to look at are CV joints, drive shaft joints, wheel bearings, motor mounts, transmission mounts, rear end mounts.
That is the telltale sign of a wheel bearing…CV joints click… Drive shafts vibrate… A gear issue will also Groan but this is far more likely a wheel bearing.
How many miles do we have on this VUVU?
If you had to guess where abouts is the sound coming from…I know its difficult to locate but is it up front? or rear? Once you narrow that down…do both associated wheel bearings. In time you will be able to tell exactly which wheel and which side a bearing is failing…I been doin this too long huh?
Does the pitch or volume change when the steering wheel is turned off-center (i.e. changing lanes or turning)? If yes, it could be the wheel bearings.
Ed B.
Hey Ed, thanks for replying. The sound doesn’t change pitch, just gets faster and slower with speed. Just like running on big mud tires.
Hi, no I can’t tell where the sound is coming from. It just resonates throughout the cabin. If I had to pick I would pick up front. It has 140,000 miles.