0:00
How do you understand that the wheel bearing is bad? Well, first of all, the wheel bearings
0:07
go bad because the lubricant inside of them may go out, and when this lubricant goes out,
0:15
it works dry, and when it works dry, you will hear it whining because it starts destroying and
0:21
it starts vibrating. That's why the wheel bearings go bad. Usually, they last about
0:27
100,000 miles to 120,000 miles. I mean, the OEM wheel bearings. If you buy a bad wheel bearing,
0:35
it may last 10,000 miles, 20,000 miles, or even less than that. So what are the reasons
0:41
for the wheel bearings to go bad? First of all, poor road quality. If you drive on bad roads,
0:49
it's very likely that your wheel bearings will not last even 50,000 miles or something like that
0:55
because the stress that the wheel bearings take on the poor road when you go on bumps, when you
1:01
go on road pits, the stress is huge, and the wheel bearing will not last as long as you want it to.
1:10
The second factor is poor-quality wheel bearing. So the wheel bearings that you buy aftermarket
1:17
or maybe you buy them used, I don't know, this is a very bad idea because the wheel bearing that is
1:23
not of high quality that is not OEM will not last as long as you would like it to last. And also the
1:30
third factor is bad wheel alignment. So when your wheels are not straight like they should be, but
1:37
staying like this and the load to your bearing is huge at this moment. And if your wheel alignment,
1:46
it's especially important for your rare wheels because the coils may sag a little and the wheels
1:55
go from this position to this position and what happens, your wheel bearing is under a huge load,
2:02
and of course, they will start vibrating and whining much faster than you may think. So how do
2:09
you understand that your wheel bearing is broken? First of all, it's a whining noise in your car.
2:15
You hear whining; you don't actually understand where this whining comes from. From some wheel,
2:21
yeah, but you don't understand exactly, and you can't locate the problem just sitting in your car,
2:27
driving and understanding that something is whining. You will hear just the noise,
2:31
but you will not know from which wheel you hear this noise. This whining comes from vibration. If
2:37
the bearing is not okay, it starts vibrating, different parts in it start vibrating, and of
2:43
course, this leads to whining on high speed. First, you will hear this whining at about 60
2:49
MPH and up, so the speed should be quite high, and you will only hear it on highways. But when the
2:56
wheel bearing goes worse and worse, you will hear this noise in the city traffic; you would hear it
3:02
at 30 mph or even less than that. But how can you understand which exactly wheel bearing is causing
3:09
these problems? Well, there are a couple of things you can do on your own without going to the
3:15
dealership or repair shop. First of all, you can go to the highway and accelerate to about 60 MPH,
3:23
55 MPH, and then you will find some slow turn, let's say on the left, and when you go into this
3:33
turn on the speed about 55 MPH, you may hear that the whining noise stopped. So when you turn right
3:45
and this noise stops, it means that the right-side bearing is in charge; when you turn left and this
3:52
noise stops, it means that the left bearing is in charge. You can't understand if it's a front
3:58
bearing or it's a rear bearing by this technique, but at least you will understand the side. When
4:04
you know the side, one thing you can do is to jack up your car near one of the wheels and just rotate
4:15
this wheel. You shouldn't hear any noises; of course, you will not hear this whining because the
4:20
whining comes on the high speed, but you shouldn't hear any noises when you do this. When you rotate
4:26
your wheel and hear the noise, it's like a sign that something is wrong with this wheel;
4:31
it's not exactly the bearing, but there is a chance, as you hear the whining on the high speed,
4:36
there is a chance that these noises are made by the bearing. Also, you may try shaking this wheel.
4:42
So when the car is jacked up, take your wheel from both sides and try shaking it. When you shake it,
4:49
if you feel any free play in this wheel, this is the 100% sign that there is a problem with the
4:57
wheel bearing and your car shouldn't even be driven like on a high speed or whatever. Now,
5:03
what you should also know about the bearings is that you shouldn't replace both bearings on
5:08
both sides if one of them is faulty; it's like a myth a lot of mechanics will tell you, "Oh,
5:15
you need to replace both of them because the other one will also be faulty in like 10,000 miles."
5:21
It's not true; when the wheel bearing is whining, you should replace it. If it's okay, if it's not
5:27
whining, don't replace it, don't spend this money. Unfortunately, you can't just ignore this problem;
5:33
this is a really big problem and it will escalate. You can drive for some time; you don't need to
5:39
call a tow truck once you hear some whining noise, but you can't ignore this problem and
5:45
keep driving your vehicle. If you do this, there is a chance that your wheel may lock up because
5:51
the bearing will lock up, and this may lead to an accident, this easily can lead to an accident.
5:58
Mechanics will say that there is a chance that your wheel will fall off, I don't know,
6:03
maybe one in a million chance, but it may look up, and this is quite a common thing. Also, this
6:11
is not an easy DIY repair, unfortunately, so if you diagnose your car with the bad wheel bearing,
6:20
the best thing to do is to go to a good mechanic and let this mechanic fix this car for you.
