7thgear

hey guys. i have a 2006 tC manual trans. with about 50k miles on it. lately for the past several months, i have been noticing a sound (hard to describe but it sounds like "woo woo") whenever the car comes to a stop. it mainly happens if i throw the car in neutral and it slows down from say 20mph and then goes away at 10mph. the sound doesn't change if the car turns at that speed or if the speed goes up.

i've been running hotchkis lowering springs for many years now and have nitto neogen tires. the tires have been on for about a year or so now. could this be my bearings going out? if i take it to the dealership, i have a feeling they won't do anything because they'll probably blame my tires or my springs. but the noise is annoying though, unless i turn up the music. are bearings covered under basic warranty 30k miles or powertrain warranty 60k miles?

weezyfbayba

rotate ur tires and see if the noise is still the same.. check for un ever wear.. or just take a picture of the tread of ur front tires and post it here ill tell u

7thgear

i appreciate your help but i don't have a digital camera to take pictures. i will rotate my tires this week and see if it goes away. i do keep up on rotating my tires though. about every 3-5k miles.

weezyfbayba

doesint mean anything yes rotateing ur tire's is a good thing but if ur alignment is out and the inside's of ur tire's are gone that will cause it. go to ur car and take ur hand and run it across the inner edge of ur tire tell me if u feel and chopping..

mystik

iTrader: (1)

unless your car is like extremely low or you have a ripped bearing sleeve you should not have to worry about bearings...jack up the car and check where the bearings are and see if the sleeve is intact.

the dealer cant really blame it on springs since its clearly not a problem with suspension...tires probably cuz tires are customer preference anyways...

ecko04

Wheel bearings do go out, it's a wear and tear part and it happens. With 80,000 miles I can definitely see them going out. On the other hand i've seen some go out with much fewer miles than yours. That 'woo, woo or whomp, whomp' sound is a tell-tale sign of bearings.

Blue_TC_Man

wheel bearings make the most sound around 45mph, its a whrrring sound. So your situation doesnt really sound like wheel bearing

check your brakes, also if it isnt tire wear and your brakes look good, think about changing your tranny fluid it might be the transmission making the nosie

7thgear

oh man. thanks for the replies guys. it seems like it could be a number of problems. my cars not low-low but it's low. the front and rear fender comes pretty much down to the top of the tires, so it covers all the wheel gap, no more than that. my tires/wheels offset are stock. just new tires on them about a year ago. my brakes are going out and i do plan on getting them changed. tranny fluid... could be, but i got that changed a few years ago too.

so what i did was made an appt with america's tire co. this wed. they'll rotate and re-balance my tires. if i need an alignment, i'll take it to les schwab. that will pretty much cover the suspension part. if none of those solve the problem, it's most likely the wheel bearings. i doubt it's the brake or tranny fluid. i want to refrain from going to the dealership.........

Blue_TC_Man

i really dont think its wheel bearings you wouldnt hear them slowing down, they only whine when your going at a good rate of speed. When we test them at our shop we drive the car at 45mph and listen for them.

and tranny fluid is supposed to be changed ever 30k miles.

weezyfbayba

bro
1. balanceing tire's isint going to fix ur problem only time u need to balance ur tire's is if u have a vibration.

2. doing an alignment isint going to fix ur problem either because once a tire has already started to wear wrong there is no fixing it so if u need new tires get new tire's THEN get an alignment.

like i said take ur hand and rub across the inner edge of ur front tire's does it feel choppy? like an up and down pattern

AZGuy

iTrader: (1)

I had a sound like this awhile back because my rear tires had feathered some. I tried to balance them but didnt fix it so I replaced them and fixed. It was OK since I had already replaced my fronts because of um agressive driving. So I would check to see if they are feathered.

weezyfbayba

when u get an alignment make sure the adjust the rear camber alot of place's won't because there lazy. if not and ur lowerd it will jsut keep chopping ur rear tire's out. and if ur toe is out on the front it will make ur tire's have edgewear

7thgear

that's good to know. the sound never happens at that high of a speed. it's always when i'm about to turn or when i'm slowly approaching my driveway. so the more i think about it, it seems like it could be the tires. i'll be back to post up pictures (what i can take on my blackberry) of the tires and any other details.

7thgear

OK, so here's the story. went out in the sunny 20 degree weather and snap some pictures of my tires (or at least what i could with my blackberry phone). to sum it up, if you look at the treads on the tire, the left side has a lot of tread left, but the right side has significant tread loss. so in other words, it's uneven. the inner edges of the tire feel smooth so no problem there.

so could that be the problem then, the uneven wear on the tires? i was dumb and didn't look at the rear tires. it was too cold so i ran back in. will look at it later. here's the pics.

fyi, i measured the tire tread using the coin trick. on the inner edge, the treads would cover lincoln's head, but the outer edge, his head wasn't covered at all.

***not sure why the picture got degraded, but what i wrote was: inner side of tire: a lot of tread left, outer side of tire: significant tread loss, inner edge of tire: smooth, no choppiness felt.

weezyfbayba

bingo problem solved .. new tire's and alignment . alignment caused ur tire's to wear unevenly

Kvizzel

I got a problem.

My front driver side bearing went out.
I got a used one and replaced it, then got new tires, winter tires for snow.

I was driving fine for a couple days then it sounds like the bearing went bad again... is this possible? maybe i just got a shi**y used bearing? Can anything else cause this?

Also the sound is like... an airplane or something.
sounds crazy.

weezyfbayba

1. why buy used OEM part's
2. if u have ____tttty tire's they could be loud and sound like a bad wheel bearing

or it's prolyl just the wheel bearing that went bad because u half azzed it buying used part's. sorry

7thgear

ahh i was hoping u would say that. replacing tires (when i do need it soon) is a lot better than trying to replace bearings. well, off to america's tire co. for new tires and a good alignment. i had an alignment done at les schwab but i'm pretty sure i ran thru some pretty good potholes since then.

hopefully america's tire co can replace my tires for free. i was reading my receipt and they were saying something about a 3 year warranty... who knows. well thanks guys!

any other input according to my pictures would be nice too.

Kvizzel

damn. guess i'll buy new bearings.

don't really think its the tires cause i just got new tires, blizzaks for snow.

also, the alignment is fine.

weezyfbayba

how do u know ur alignment is fine? u can get a alignment and leave the shop and hit a polhole and alignment is out