Rusty wheel bearing question

[daneli]

This is a question about an Infiniti G20. I’ve had a strange, intermittent noise coming from my front left wheel for the last several months. It is kind of like a whistling sound, with the pitch varying with wheel speed, but only up to about 15mph after which the noise disappears. (The noise also seems to be influenced by outside temperature, with the noise loudest when ambient temperatures were moderate.)

I removed the wheel bearing this weekend and was surprised to find that the inner race was not on the hub when I removed the hub from the knuckle. (I mean the inner race wasn’t pressed on the hub – it was just sitting in the knuckle after the hub was removed from the knuckle.) When I got a closer look, it became clear that the race had suffered from a fair degree of corrosion. The inner race was rusted and pitted – it looks like moisture found its way past the hub seal and compromised the race.

The hub itself doesn’t have any corrosion, pitting or obvious wear that I could see or feel. I gave it a quick wipe with fine emery cloth and then cleaned it and it seems to be undamaged. But I didn’t take any precision measurements of the hub. My question is: if the inner race is corroded does this mean that it is always a good idea to replace the hub? As it is, I reused my existing hub and just installed a new bearing and seals. The noise is gone and the car now drives fine, but I’m wondering if it is wise to trust the hub. Any advice would be appreciated.

Topic

[college man]

If the hub had no corrosion its fine to reuse. 🙂

[Bill]

Replacing wheel bearings on various cars these days is big business for repair shops. The manufactures must be using the cheapest crap they can get their hands on. In the small shop I work in we average 2 wheel bearing replacements a week sometimes.

As long as everything fits correctly and you used a torque wrench on the axle nut you should be fine using the old hub. It might even last longer than the original.

[EricTheCarGuy]

I do not recommend separating wheel bearings like that. You can often take a good wheel bearing and turn it into a bad one by doing that. The noise does not sound wheel bearing related anyway. In fact, I would have looked at the brakes and splash shield. More information here.

http://www.ericthecarguy.com/faq/diagnosing-noises-in-your-car

http://www.ericthecarguy.com/faq/solving-brake-problems

Good luck and keep us posted.

[daneli]

Thanks Eric, CollegeMan and WyseTech. I didn’t explain the whole background to the story. I’d already eliminated the brakes and the splash shield as the source of the squeak and determined that the bearing was probably bad. I didn’t press the hub out of the knuckle in order to do an inspection – I had already decided to replace the bearing. What surprised me was that when the hub was pressed from the knuckle there was no inner race attached to it. On inspection it was clear that the bearing was bad since there was significant corrosion and pitting on the inner race and the grease had hardened. I’m just trying to figure out if it is okay that I reused the old hub when I installed the new bearings, or if significant damage to an inner race usually means that the hub should be replaced along with the wheel bearing. Hope that is more clear.

[Stephen Bowen]

Normally when you have a wheel bearing replaced, you also replace the race the bearing runs in. That’s because they wear in a “set” pattern.

The bearing race could have been pitted or scored–Clearly we’re not viewing it first hand so we are doing the best we can.

In short–(I know, too late) If you replaced the bearing and it’s races? You’re good to go. The bearing race did get replaced in the hub, correct? Provided you did that course of action, new seal(s) where needed…and did the correct lube and torque? Should be fine.

S-

[daneli]

Yeah I replaced the bearing, the races, seals, etc. (I just was wondering what happens to the hub when the races are corroded or damaged.)

[Stephen Bowen]

Should be fine. Unless the race “blew Up” in the hub? Then yeah….different story.

If it worries you? Just keep an “ear” on it when you drive. If a wheel bearing goes bad, you’ll get some interesting noises that you’ve already figured out most of.

S-

[EricTheCarGuy]

Thanks for that bit of clarification. Glad you found the problem and that you’ve been able to fix it. Thanks for the updates and for using the ETCG forum.

[Author]

Replies