My brother came to the USA to spend some time with the family and upon taking my car for a joyride for his first experience, he said to me You have been driving all this time with a bad rear wheel bearings
He could hear a humming noise coming from the left side from the rear wheel as the car accelerate forward. And as most of you already know on this forum, I’m deaf.
I’m upset. Because it wasn’t too long ago I took the car to Lexus for them to diagnose a steering wheel grabbing symptom I was having with the car and they claimed to thoroughly inspected it, and took the car on the highway 3 times.
How did they miss the bad bearings ?
I tell the dealer at all times to check these important things for me as a deaf driver because, yea, it’s important for the deaf. Smh.
So my question is: how long can I drive on bad bearings ? Is this an urgent repair requirement ?
To answer the direct question - bad wheel bearings are VERY dangerous.
It’s also perfectly plausible that the bearing was fine when the dealer looked at it, but has since begun its failure.
And I know it doesn’t help YOU, but you can ask your brother - very often bad wheel bearing noise builds and peaks in the 45-55mph zone, and changes noticeably when the vehicle is turned, increasing or decreasing in noise depending on which side is bad and which is being loaded. All of that is just very typical though - it can present in different ways.
If you ask the dealer to diagnose the noise, take your brother with you. IMO you need someone that can hear to describe the problem to the service advisor, and your brother is the one that heard the noise. You might also have another relative or friend without hearing loss to go for a ride and listen for the noise. This is a cheap second opinion on whether there is a noise and isn’t a substitute for a shop diagnosis. That is, if your friends hear something and tell you it’s nothing to worry about, you should consider whether you need a professional opinion.
My brother works on all his vehicles himself but he’s not a mechanic. My father as well as mother told me they heard the noise. However, my father said it’s hard to determine whether the noise is from the tires or from the bearings.
So yes, I’m taking the car in. Some research I did suggested price for bearings replacement can be above $1000.
Years ago my VW Rabbit developed worn front wheel bearings. The symptom at first was very subtle, not obvious, but over more miles driven, it became so bad it couldn’t be ignored, a sort of roaring sound the gets louder the faster you go. I’m just knucklehead diyer w/no Lexus 350 experience (which I presume is the car to which you refer), but pro-mechanic (presumably) @Nevada_545 has mentioned here that in some cases the wheel-bearing diagnosis is often difficult & the only way the wheel bearing is shown to be the culprit is by replacing it. In my case a VW specialty shop replaced both front wheel bearings and the roaring noise disappeared immediately . I think the job cost about $350 back then, so $1000 now seems reasonable.
To answer your main question, I will put it like this, a wheel bearing is what allows your wheel/tire to rotate and still stay attached to the vehicle… Now how long it will last all depends on how fast or slow it is deteriorating…
A wheel bearing typically has 2 rows, an inner and an outer, it has been my experience that the outer row is what gets loose but doesn’t always make noise, and the inner row is what makes the noise but can still be tight, it is when the bearing is both loose and making noise that it is rapidly deteriorating and is unsafe…
That being said, the noise could very well just be a cupped tire, your vehicle having staggered wheels/tires will typically run a negative camber and if the rear toe gets out of spec a little it can cause abnormal tire wear and make a humming to a roaring noise… Also noise can travel, so worst case you could have a rear diff carrier bearing going bad and the noise travel down the axle making it sound like a bad wheel bearing…
Best advise has already been giving, get it checked out ASAP, as you said you are about too…
You’re most welcome. This thread reminds me, a few years ago my Corolla developed a mystery noise, noticed coming from driver’s side rear, at low speed parking lot driving. IIRC some posters here speculated it might be wheel bearing, and I was thinking to replace the bearing or the entire hub ass’y, but first I inspected the tire treads all around and decided the tires needed replacement anyway. So I did that first, which entirely solved the noise problem. There’s probably a moral to this story, but what it is, no idea ???..lol.
Technically you are supposed to measure the lowest part of the tread, and the lowest part of the uneven worn tire would be the 2/32, that uneven wear (that I mentioned earlier) is due from the negative camber and then the toe being out of spec, a lot of times on the rear when the toe is out it causing the wear pattern on the other rear tire… On that 2/32 tire, it probably has 4/32 close to the 2/32 wear… If you could see the tire off the vehicle or with the vehicle up in the air you could see the difference in the tread depth across the tread and or edge…
I went into my maintenance history log to make sure the info is correct that I posted.
Car rear tire ( left) replaced June 25th, 2021 at mavis $250. 35k mileage.
If my memory serves me right, I replaced it due to it being punctured ? Maintenance history log says it was the only tire that got replaced at that time.
Didn’t I also have a flat tire in the front on the taconic pky and bent the rim ?
I recalled Toyota telling me to replace all 4 tires at once for AWD vehicles to avoid uneven wear and this noise problem. But Mavis told me there was no reason to replace all 4 when the tread on them were almost at new.
Something tells me one of the dealers I bring my car to isn’t honest. Lexus not too long ago says my tires were all even. I think the report says 6/32 on all 4 tires ( I would need to find the receipt).
Then 5000 miles later the left rear tire is 2/32 says Toyota ?
