Bad wheel bearing @ 30K

Hello,

At about 20k on my 07 I started hearing a faint whup whup whup between 35 and 50 mph's on the front driver's side area. At 60+ pretty quiet.
It has gotten real loud at the present 30K. I suspected the tirers as I know the Integrities are complete junk but as a test I did a rotation and exact same noise.
I thought thats not good but found it hard to believe soemthing else was bad as I had no vibration and no pull whatsoever in steering.

Long story short I bought a new set of tires Kumho KR21's at stock size and oh crap exact same noise.

Took it in as I'm under warranty to the dealer and it was a bad front drivers side wheel bearing. Weird as the car is babied, garaged, never driven in deep water, never top speed for any length of time.
Only thing I noticed with the check drive I did with the mechanic was when your driving and steering quick hard left than right it would make louder whup noise when you turned left putting sudden more weight on the driver's side.

Anyway hope this helps someone else's search for the elusive front end noises.

BTW, the Kumho's are not bad at all. Super quiet and at stock 185 size feel like there putting down rubber twice as wide. What a difference having a good tire on this car. There cheap and not LRR tires so taking a good mileage hit maybe 3 mpg's but the cheap part is what I need right now. Lots of other things going on. Anyway $399 installed out the door @ Tire Kingdom. They beat Tire Rack.

Also Clearwater Toyota did the bearing work and they did an amazing job. Didn't bust my chops on the 30K service. I said no across the board as I did it all myself and they said cool.
Had to order parts and 24 hours later I drove a washed car off there lot that was fixed. Thats pretty impressive. No drama and no nickle and dime. All under 5/60,000 drivetrain warr. Very pleased.


I highly recommend Clearwater Toyota. Clearwater, Florida.

 

Yes my whup whup started very faintly around 25,000 miles. It was hard to detect if it was just one wheel and I discounted it to the world's worst tire the Integrities and figured I'd live with it till the tires wore out.

But it got much worse and could hear that it waas coming from the front driver.

I tried having tires balanced. Nope. Tried rotating tires and was very bummed out to still hear it at exact same level.

Tires were getting pretty worn so got a new set and same noise.

My symptoms were a little different then yours. Here's the exact symptoms for me:

No whup till around 30 miles an hour.

Stopped whupping at speeds above 60. Very quiet at speed.

Also if you whip the wheel left or right while your driving the noise got worse if you whipped right. Which made sense since now alot more weight was on the driver side bearing all of a sudden.

My car has had a very very easy life. Highly maintained. Not much high speed bonsai. Always garaged. Never swamped in rain.

My dealer got the part in one day and now its perfect again.

Have seen alot of wheel bearing failures on here but not alot at our mileage.

And no the bearing race is not serviceable. Its a sealed hub.
Not sure of hub cost.

 

Agreeed. There sales rap made me very hesitant to bring the car back for service. But there service dept is pretty good. Have you seen there new shop out back since they remodeled?

Its huge. Monster warehouse with great lighting and lots of lift racks well spaced and the entire joint is air conditioned. Its impressive.