Over the past couple of months I've been trying to diagnose a noisy rear wheel bearing. The noise was quite loud but I couldn't detect any wear and my local indy garage couldn't either. They suggested it might be worth swapping the tyres round and although sceptical, I eventually did.
The result was instant. Noisy rear end is now noisy front end and if anything, noisier than before. Now that its just in front of me, I'm able to pinpoint the noise to the left front (formerly fitted to left rear). After a bit of googling and looking at the tyre carefully, I can see I've got stepping/sawtoothing on the inside edge.
So a couple of questions. Obviously, something is amiss with the rear wheel alignment but the last time I had new tyres fitted, I had an alignment check which was fine. Would a four wheel alignment check be better? I didn't think anything on the rear was adjustable.
Secondly, now this stepped tyre is on the front, what is the chance of the stepped area wearing down normally and the noise reducing. The tyre is only half worn with about 8-10k miles remaining and I don't want to throw it away but it is incredibly noisy.
Car is Focus 2.0 TDCi with Uniroyal Rainsport 2 all round. 120k miles on the clock.