Tire Noise??

[Microman23]

I recently noticed my tires are making a lot of noise. When I turn to the left, the noise goes away though. One person told me I need to rotate my tires and get a frokt end alignment. Another told me my tires needed balanced. Another told me its my wheel bearings. Any suggestions on what it could be??

[avguy]

It sounds like it may be a wheel bearing, but you need to eliminate the tires/wheels and the C/V axles first. Completely evaluate the noise before doing anything, including while making slow, big circles both forward and in reverse. Next swap the 2 front tires and check for noise again. If the noise remains basically the same, then swap front tires with the rear ones. If still no change, the final thing would be to check for damaged C/V joints. If all of the boots are intact, and there is no sign of grease anywhere than it's unlikely (but not impossible) that any of the C/Vs are bad. That leaves the wheel bearing as the probable cause of the noise. In the case of right-turn noise, it's most likely the driver side bearing, so it would be best to replace that one first.

[thankful_ragamuffin]

You can also jack up the front end and push and pull on the top of each tire to check for excessive play in the bearing.

[avguy]

You can also jack up the front end and push and pull on the top of each tire to check for excessive play in the bearing.

I was going through this same thing on my '05 a few months ago. I tried this test that you mentioned, but could never feel any movement, and that was one of the things that was making the diagnosis of mine really difficult. When I finally pulled the knuckle to replace the bearing, it turned out that there was a VERY small amount of bearing movement in one side. So it became apparent to me why I couldn't feel movement at the wheel/tire. I've also read similar reports of this elsewhere, so I'd advise that the absence of movement at the wheel/tiire does not eliminate the bearing possibly being bad.