I am getting a grinding sound from what sounds like the front-left tire of my car.
The car is a 2006 Scion tC - manual transmission.
It gets worse as the tire speed increases (not the engine speed and irrelevantly of whether the car is in gear), and seems to get worse when I turn left. I relaced my tires about two months ago and it started a few weeks later and seems to be getting worse.
Thanks for any help.
Sounds like a wheel bearing to me. (cvc joint second possibility)
I agree with the bearing. My daughter’s car did that after an accident and it was the bearing,
A faulty left front wheel bearing is indeed a likely cause, except for one thing. The noise gets worse when you turn left. If it was the left front, the noise should get worse when you turn right, as that puts more pressure on the left side of the car.
hmmm … well, if this were my car before replacing a wheel bearing, I’d at least remove the front wheels and take a look at the front brake workings, make sure nothing is amiss there, and the pads are within spec. With the wheel off, and good lighting, I’d also turn the brake disc & carefully look here and there, looking/listening for any kind of pebble or road debris that has gotten wedged in the works. Likewise, I’d inspect the wheels for loose pebbles hiding in some nook or cranny. If nothing is found, then I’d see what the shop manual has to say about procedures for diagnosing faulty front wheel bearings for this car. Usually in/out (in the direction of the axel) and up/down (90 deg to the axel) play is supposed to be measured as part of the diagnoses.
While I was looking in that area, I’d take a quick look-see at the CV joints, see if anything usuaual is happening there. Are the rubber boots, inner and outer, still fully intact?
How many miles?
I have a 2005 tC with just over 200,000 miles. I replaced both front bearings at about 190,000 miles. probably could have done so earlier. I learned from teh Toyota design docs that they used double-row ball bearings instead of tapered roller bearings for the lower rolling resistance. I also learned that bad front bearings in high mileage tCs are common.
If you do confirm and change the bearings, I’d recommend Timkin bearings. They do make them for this application and Timkin is the best there is in bearings.
Thanks all. I will take a look. Right now I’m around 97,000 miles.
Thanks all, turned out to be - as expected - the bearing.
Sincere thanks for posting back and letting us know. We usually never hear the final results.
Sincere best.