Sebring driving noise

If you sway the vehicle from side to side as the noise is happening will it change or go away as you do it? Possibly a wheel bearing.

Glenn Beasley Chrysler Tech

at the risk of saying "Me too", I had a similar event recently and it turned out to be a front wheel bearing.

This was at a relatively low 30,000 km. I think there may be a quality issue with these bearings as that is way too soon imho.

I was not able to get any "co-pay" in the work "due to the age of the vehicle"

Many THX Glenn and philthy and rickety for your replies. I tried the side to side Glenn suggested, also a road curve to the left then right. Turning to the left I had the noise, even worse on the road curve at about 40mph. Turning to the right much less or even no noise on the road curve. So shall I conclude the right wheel bearing is the problem?

This car is 5 months before the 5 yr power train guarantee runs out. The Docs say contact your dealer to get the coverage details. Surely the drive wheel bearings are part of the drive train? Does anyone know?

TIA; Gerry

Depends on the service contract and who it was purchased with. read the coverage guide that came with it when you bought it. But yes, most do consider a wheel bearing power train.

Glenn Beasley Chrysler Tech

It's Chrysler's warranty; in Canada.

I'm was hoping that, but I just booked service and was advised the bearings are not covered by the CDN Chrysler PT warranty. They said that warranty covers engine to driving axle; the bearings being just outside of the coverage. Darn!

It was the right front wheel bearing as suspected and the left one was headed in the same direction. So at a big bill my dealer replaced both front wheel bearings and wife's Sebring is as quiet as new.

This situation has me concerned as this '01 Sebring has only about 20k miles on it. I'm wondering if:

-The original bearings just happened to be a bad batch.

-The original bearings were improperly installed.

- There is a design problem with these front bearings. The service rep said 40k miles is the normal bearing life on this car. I find this very poor as we have driven several other Chrysler FWD cars over 80k miles since '86 and have never replaced the front wheel bearings.

If the vehicle ever hit something or was involved in an accident, If you live in an area like I do with huge potholes throughout the city, that could cause it. But the bearings do last longer then 40k. Sometimes the person that is working on the vehicle will think the bearing on one side is bad and replace it because of the noise. Then finds out it wasn't the faulty one and now they have to sell you the other side to actually fix the problem. Is this why they told you both bearings were bad?? Highly unlikely with that mileage that both bearings were bad, but I guess it could happen.

Glenn Beasley Chrysler Tech

No. Just the normal rough Canadian winter spring roads, which several previous FWD Chrysler cars have handled. Over 80K miles on previous with no bearing troubles.

Yes, that's always been my previous experience.

He agreed with my analysis that the right bearing was the major noise maker, but he also found the left one had some noise so it was felt to be wise to replace it at the same time.

With the service rep saying they usually last 40K miles, only twice what we got, but still so soon, I got wondering why the Sebring bearings fail so soon.

That bearing is the same on the Caravan, LH and of course Sebring. Same design,same construction.

Glenn Beasley Chrysler Tech

Interesting as my '95 LH is over 80K miles and the bearings are OK. So Chrysler got a very bad batch, probably from a lower cost supplier.

It still c> aftermarket bearinmgs 60 to 100 bucs how much at dealer 200.00+?? > labor time???

You're very close. Bearings= 2@ $105.=$210. Labour= @2.1 units (hrs?)=$225. NB: In Canadian $s, currently about 86¢ US.

I'm going to take up this issue of these very poor quality bearings with Chrysler.

Not sure about your particular vehicle, but on the 99 convertibles the wheel bearing is part of the "hub assembly". It is not serviceable, not lubricatable, and must be replaced as a unit. Parts are $65-$90 per side on the Net.

These hubs are known to have a very low lifespan, it's a common problem. I have no idea what the labor cost to replace is, but it's a fairly complicated job.

Any real competent mechanic can do it, no need to go to a dealer.

Why are you going back to extremely old and dead threads (one from 2007, one from *2004*!!, and this one from 2006) and resurrecting them?

On replacing hub bearing assys., DIY'ers do them all the time. Not a big deal.

Bill Putney (To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my address with the letter 'x')

ambientgurl wrote:

Not to mention you can sometimes just rotate them 180 degrees and get another 50K out of them.

Ted

I actually was successful the first time I tried that in the late 80's on a car I had (actually it was 120° - three holes/bolts in the hub). A second time I tried it for grins, it didn't work. It depends on what element of the bearing gets pitted or brinelled, and where - i.e., if it's the stationary or rotating race.

Bill Putney (To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my address with the letter 'x')

BOTH front bearings on my '94 T&C have had that treatment. It worked for them ;-)

Ted