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wheel bearing or driveling vibes?

fightermatt

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I have a 2016 gtpp manual with about 49000 miles, I've read the post about the driveline vibe issues, which has me a little concerned because I'm getting a roaring sound from the rear end. It is pretty loud and it just started, noticed on my 1 hour drive home from work this morning. To me it sounds like a wheel bearing is going bad, most likely the left rear; if I turn left and the weight shifts to the right side the sound totally goes away. At first I thought maybe the diff, or driveshaft might be the problem but then I noticed the left turn thing and my son from the back seat said it's definitely coming from the left side of the car. I don't want to just throw parts at it but I've never had a wheel bearing go bad at 50000 miles. My truck went 200000 before it needed a replacement. Has anyone else had to replace wheel bearings this early?
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fightermatt

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Also forgot to mention, checked all bearings today, zero play in all of them. Checked the torque on the subframe bolts and the hub nuts. The car is lowered on vogtland springs 1".
 

Cobra Jet

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Usually the rumble you describe relates to a bad wheel bearing and severity of harshness will decrease or increase with speed and if leaning into a curve with more pressure being exerted onto the bearing. So when you lifted the vehicle and tugged on each wheel, there was not any movement?

—

Here’s how you can tell if it’s driveline related:

While driving, let off the accelerator - does the harshness/noise seem to subside?

While driving and reaching a certain MPH or RPM, does the harshness get worse or subside?

While driving, if you were to SAFELY put the car into neutral, does the harshness or noise subside?

If you answered yes to any of the above, then the noise is driveline related since in all such instances you are either applying or removing load from the driveline. Usually if there is load applied to the driveline the vibe will be persistent in a certain RPM range at a certain speed. Once you remove the load (letting car decelerate on it’s own or putting it into neutral), the vibe will subside.

Excluding front and rear wheel hub bearing failure, the vibe could be:
1) Deteriorating rear diff pinion bearing
2) irregular ring gear wear or broken ring gear teeth
3) bad driveshaft u-joints
4) bad driveshaft center support bearing
5) bad axles
6) out of balance driveshaft
7) trans or rear pinion flange issues
 
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fightermatt

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Usually the rumble you describe relates to a bad wheel bearing and severity of harshness will decrease or increase with speed and if leaning into a curve with more pressure being exerted onto the bearing. So when you lifted the vehicle and tugged on each wheel, there was not any movement?

—

Here’s how you can tell if it’s driveline related:

While driving, let off the accelerator - does the harshness/noise seem to subside?

While driving and reaching a certain MPH or RPM, does the harshness get worse or subside?

While driving, if you were to SAFELY put the car into neutral, does the harshness or noise subside?

If you answered yes to any of the above, then the noise is driveline related since in all such instances you are either applying or removing load from the driveline. Usually if there is load applied to the driveline the vibe will be persistent in a certain RPM range at a certain speed. Once you remove the load (letting car decelerate on it’s own or putting it into neutral), the vibe will subside.

Excluding front and rear wheel hub bearing failure, the vibe could be:
1) Deteriorating rear diff pinion bearing
2) irregular ring gear wear or broken ring gear teeth
3) bad driveshaft u-joints
4) bad driveshaft center support bearing
5) bad axles
6) out of balance driveshaft
7) trans or rear pinion flange issues
As speed increases, noise increases, if I put the trans in neutral while rolling down the road, the noise and vibration stays consistent with the speed of the vehicle. When I accelerate, as the speed increases, the noise and vibration increase. The noise and feel, sounds a lot like what is described in the driveline vibe thread, but my experience tells me it's a wheel bearing. But 49000 miles?
 

Cobra Jet

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Well, 49k and original wheel bearings, consider yourself lucky. There have been a lot of threads on here with folks having to replace wheel bearings with less than 6k - and some folks have even reported having to get wheel bearings replaced 3x under warranty.

Wheel bearings that are bad will not always exhibit side to side or up/down play by yanking on the suspended wheel.

The other way to check the bearings:

Jack car up (safely support it) and working 1 wheel at a time, remove the wheel. Remove the brake caliper. Grasp and slowly turn the hub; while turning it, listen carefully and also observe the feeling of the hub as you are turning it. Does it feel like a pepper grinder? If so, the hub bearing is shot. When manually turning a wheel hub, it should feel smooth during complete rotation - no binding, no resistance, no harshness and no “grind”.

Many folks try to diagnose a bad wheel bearing by just jacking the car up and turning/spinning the wheel on the car. Can’t do it that way because the brake pad is still making contact with the rotor, you’re going to get resistance and can’t feel the bearing out, so it’s not a good way to really tell if a bearing is bad.

Hope that helps some more.

Based on your last post, it sounds more like a bad (or multiple bad) wheel bearings.

If the rear diff was bad (bearings or ring gear), the noise will be present as you increase speed and the harshness (rumble noise) would get louder and in extreme cases, it would actually create a “howl”.

Sidebar:
I had a prior 96 Cobra - drove it out to TX from NJ and on the way back, before crossing the TX border, the rear started making noises with a harsh feeling. I decided to keep driving. By the time I got it back to NJ - the ride from a standing stop to 65 felt like the car was literally a Mack truck in its lowest gear. The rear end rear was howling so loud inside the passenger compartment, I could not even hear the radio at its loudest level or even have a discussion with my friend. The shop who did the repair said they never saw a rear diff as F’d as mine and couldn’t believe the car even made it back to NJ. They had to replace EVERYTHING in the rear and flush the housing. New axles, new axle bearings, seals, new ring/pinion set, etc., but those 4:30’s that went in place were awesome and well worth the repair bill!! LOL.
 

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fightermatt

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Well, 49k and original wheel bearings, consider yourself lucky. There have been a lot of threads on here with folks having to replace wheel bearings with less than 6k - and some folks have even reported having to get wheel bearings replaced 3x under warranty.

Wheel bearings that are bad will not always exhibit side to side or up/down play by yanking on the suspended wheel.

The other way to check the bearings:

Jack car up (safely support it) and working 1 wheel at a time, remove the wheel. Remove the brake caliper. Grasp and slowly turn the hub; while turning it, listen carefully and also observe the feeling of the hub as you are turning it. Does it feel like a pepper grinder? If so, the hub bearing is shot. When manually turning a wheel hub, it should feel smooth during complete rotation - no binding, no resistance, no harshness and no “grind”.

Many folks try to diagnose a bad wheel bearing by just jacking the car up and turning/spinning the wheel on the car. Can’t do it that way because the brake pad is still making contact with the rotor, you’re going to get resistance and can’t feel the bearing out, so it’s not a good way to really tell if a bearing is bad.

Hope that helps some more.

Based on your last post, it sounds more like a bad (or multiple bad) wheel bearings.

If the rear diff was bad (bearings or ring gear), the noise will be present as you increase speed and the harshness (rumble noise) would get louder and in extreme cases, it would actually create a “howl”.

Sidebar:
I had a prior 96 Cobra - drove it out to TX from NJ and on the way back, before crossing the TX border, the rear started making noises with a harsh feeling. I decided to keep driving. By the time I got it back to NJ - the ride from a standing stop to 65 felt like the car was literally a Mack truck in its lowest gear. The rear end rear was howling so loud inside the passenger compartment, I could not even hear the radio at its loudest level or even have a discussion with my friend. The shop who did the repair said they never saw a rear diff as F’d as mine and couldn’t believe the car even made it back to NJ. They had to replace EVERYTHING in the rear and flush the housing. New axles, new axle bearings, seals, new ring/pinion set, etc., but those 4:30’s that went in place were awesome and well worth the repair bill!! LOL.
I'm pulling the hub today to check it, I would describe the sound as more of a drone at speed, or maybe really really loud tires.
 
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fightermatt

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It was the left rear wheel bearing, pulled it completely off the car, it had some slop in it. I already ordered new ones last night, but i cleaned the splines up with a wired brush and reassembled everything with the hub nuts torqued to 150 instead of 94 (I think it is). No more play and the sounds is gone.
 

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I think I might have the same issue. It seems like it is coming from the LH rear. The sounds seems to be the worst at around 75 to 80 mph. Sometimes it sounds like a continuous drone or howl and other times it is intermittent depending on the road. The sound is the same if i push in the clutch or drop it down a gear. It also seems worse after the car has sat overnight or several days. Seems to subside some the farther i drive. Does this sound like what you were experiencing? If so, how big of a job was it to replace the bearings?
 

NightmareMoon

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I think I might have the same issue. It seems like it is coming from the LH rear. The sounds seems to be the worst at around 75 to 80 mph. Sometimes it sounds like a continuous drone or howl and other times it is intermittent depending on the road. The sound is the same if i push in the clutch or drop it down a gear. It also seems worse after the car has sat overnight or several days. Seems to subside some the farther i drive. Does this sound like what you were experiencing? If so, how big of a job was it to replace the bearings?
Definitely could be a wheel bearing. With a good set of socket wrenches and extensions, and a good impact wrench for the axle nut itself, its not too bad of a job to do at home. I’ve had 3 rear hubs replaced in 55k miles. Two were detected from wobbling, one made a clicking sound. I had Ford replace one, a mechanic replaced another. I replaced the 3rd myself.
 

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Definitely could be a wheel bearing. With a good set of socket wrenches and extensions, and a good impact wrench for the axle nut itself, its not too bad of a job to do at home. I’ve had 3 rear hubs replaced in 55k miles. Two were detected from wobbling, one made a clicking sound. I had Ford replace one, a mechanic replaced another. I replaced the 3rd myself.
What replacement brand did you end up going with each time? Did one accrue more miles than the last, or were all premature failures?

Was it same bearing failure each time or different corners?
 

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fightermatt

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What replacement brand did you end up going with each time? Did one accrue more miles than the last, or were all premature failures?

Was it same bearing failure each time or different corners?
Go to rockauto, get the timken bearings, it's an easy job, torque everything to spec; there is a post on here with all the suspension torque specs. I torqued my axle nuts to 150 plus a quarter turn based on another post on the forum. Get new axle nuts from the dealership or rockauto if they have them, they are stretch to yield nuts, one time use; garbage design.
 

NightmareMoon

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What replacement brand did you end up going with each time? Did one accrue more miles than the last, or were all premature failures?

Was it same bearing failure each time or different corners?
I used Ford parts each time. Two left rears and one right rear. With the track time and autox runs my car has seen, I wouldn’t judge the failures premature exactly. Hubs are a wear item, eventually they all need replacing. I’d hope to see more miles before a failure but at least the parts aren’t all that expensive.
 

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Thanks. Im out of my bumper to bumper warranty so do you know if these are covered by the powertrain warranty. After reading my warranty, it appears the should be covered
 

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26K on my 2018 GT and the dealer is replacing both front wheel bearings (hubs) under warranty as we speak. I was getting a fast repeating dull knocking noise in tempo with forward speed (not rpm), most obvious around 45-50mph and turning the wheel slightly left made it louder. First they blamed my tires, but after new tires I still had the noise so now they say it's the bearings. I'll be asking the tech if a wheel alignment should accompany the front hub replacement, hint, hint...

For those not under warranty, here's a how-to for the rear hubs; looks do-able:
 

NightmareMoon

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Weird, I haven’t seen many reports of bad /front/ hubs. Could be it tho.
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