Car starts a grinding noise while driving. Starts around 3 MPH and stops around 45 MPH. Sounds as though it is coming from either the front right or transmission. Tried gliding in neutral from 45 to stop and around 25 MPH it kicked back in and got worse with braking. Brake pads look good. Bearing in that wheel was replaced in 2018 after an accident. Doesn’t sound like brakes and can’t tell if it’s from transmission, brakes or bearing. Have an appointment with Chrysler, but that’s a month out.
Did you drive your Jeep through high water in the past year or two, water high enough to reach the hubs? If so, my guess for the first suspect, faulty wheel bearing. Water eventually infiltrates and rusts the bearing, but it can take months or even a year for that to happen & the symptom to develop. The usual symptom for faulty wheel bearing a roaring sound that gets louder the faster you drive. Do you notice anything like that? It’s pretty common by reports here however to have a faulty wheel bearing without that symptom. One bit of good news, the coasting in neutral experiment suggests transmission is not the most likely culprit.
When I was first reading your post, I was thinking one of the brake wear indicators is contacting the brake disk. Do you notice any unusual marks on the brake disk? Did you have any brake work done just prior to first noticing this problem?
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We live in Alaska. Water is always a problem. Pretty much the entire right front wheel and all that goes with it, was replaced in 2018 after an accident. Both front brake pads look good, no unusual marks or wear. All the brake tattle tells I ever heard were more high pitched and change sound when applying the brakes, this is a grinding noise. It stops once you’re above around 40 to 45 MPH and quite often makes a sound like a bearing suddenly freeing up, like an old alternator bearing that suddenly engages. Tough to explain, if you’ve never heard it.
Just my opinion, but I would try to find a local independent shop. Sooner rather than in a month.
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Agree. Already planned on calling another one today. Thanks for your help.
If not brakes, I would check the wheel bearing or cv joint. Damage bad enough to replace a wheel can also damage these parts.
Not disputing that’s the usual sort of symptom, especially for disk brakes. However it isn’t always. For example I recently replaced a broken rear brake spring on one drum-brake wheel of my truck. While doing that decided to renew the self-adjuster mechanism so the adjuster wheel made solid contact with the lever, and everything was lubed & turned freely. After re-installing drum & wheel I manually adjusted the shoes to be close to drum. Test drive produced an oscillating rrrrrumf … rrrumff … grinding sound from the same wheel. Applying brake pedal had no effect. Only way I could get the to stop was to stop the truck. My theory was the shoes were adjusted just a little too close to the drum, & probably not entirely centered, and once I applied the brake pedal firmly a few times, and the shoes wore a little from the rubbing, the noise would soon go away. It did. Took about a mile.
I experienced a grinding sound from my rear shoe brakes on my Corolla at one point, but that only occurred when applying the brake pedal. That one was caused by the shoes were close to wear limit.
All that said, given what you say about living in Alaska, hub frequently goes underwater, and assuming you have disk brakes on all four wheels, my guess is the wheel bearing.