spender

I've recently "felt" that my front wheels rolling seem louder (but these are such noisy cars, who the heck knows?), so I jacked up the front this morning to do the traditional bearing test for play in my front wheels (grab 9 and 3 and then 12 and 6 and try to move).

My passenger front wheel wouldn't move on either axis, solid as a rock. My driver wheel, however, moved ever so slightly (and I mean very small) and I could hear a small click on the 9 and 3 - but didn't budge on the 12 and 6. Car has about 65K miles.

Do I have a bad wheel bearing on the driver side, or could it be something else? Ideas welcomed.

Ubermensch

I recently had to have one of my front wheel bearings replaced. It was making a good amount of noise but had zero play. I don't think the push/pull method tells you much until the bearing is in terrible shape. Your best diagnostic is putting the car in the air, rotating the wheel, and using a stethoscope/screw driver to listen to the bearing. I was convinced it was just road noise until it got really loud. Now I cant believe I lived with it so long...

Macster

My experience as well. After new tires installed on my Boxster (the Pirelli tires were noisy as heck) the shop manager called to tell me he thought the car had a bad wheel bearing due to the noise present now audible over the tires.

I had suspected as much but with the noisy tires it was not clear to me though a bearing was bad.

Trouble is we just had the noise to go by. The old check for play didn't tell us anything. After I took the car out for a test drive I came back and told the manager which bearing I thought was the bad wheel bearing (I forget which side now but it was a rear wheel bearing) and my opinion agreed with his and he replaced that bearing and the noise was gone. Has remained gone now for over 160K miles.

Added: And the original bearings (the other 3) have remained quiet now for over (just over...) 268K miles.

LostSouth

I noticed my was going out by a change in sound as I loaded up the left side. I thought it was rear and so did the shop. Great shop, the replaced the rear first and it wasn't it, so they replaced the front and didn't charge me for replacing the rear.

ClickClickBoom

I just went through this. I noticed my car getting slowly noisier. I put the car up on jack stands and pulled the wheels. Then I put it in 6th gear and walked around the car. It was obvious it was the front drivers wheel bearing. I just changed it last week and I am amazed how quiet it is now.