Wheel Bearings

Hi all,

I have had to take my car (V Reg Renault Megane Classic) into National Tyre for replacement disks and pads for the front.

They also checked a grinding noise from the rear driver side wheel. They have said it is the wheel bearing and that it needs doing ASAP or the wheel will come off.

Is this correct or are they just trying to get more cash?

How likely is it that the wheel will actually come off?

Any advice would be aprecialted.

Many thanks

Daryl

Reply to
hedwig-0101
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Normally it rumbles then whines first. If it's actually a wheel bearing making a grinding noise though then I'd see their point

Reply to
DuncanWood

It may be correct. They are almost certainly trying to get more cash. It is unlikely that the wheel will come off completely, although it can come adrift enough to cause serious problems.Usually this means loss of drive and/or the wheel being obviously out of the position it should be in according to the position of the steering wheel.

First test is to drive the car, turning left and right, and listen to the noise. If it happens on left hand bends, then the right hand bearing is at fault, and vice versa. Another sign is that the grinding noise disappears or lessens when you put your foot on the brake.

Next test is to jack up the front wheel(s) and take hold of the wheel at top and bottom. Now try to rock the wheel in and out. If you can do this more than a minute amount, there is serious play in the bearing and the car should not be driven at all until it is rectified.

Best of luck

Steve

Reply to
shazzbat

The message from DuncanWood contains these words:

More likely it's a pad worn too far and grinding on the disc.

Reply to
Guy King

You really read the post fully then - NOT!

And yes, the wheel could come off.

You can also spin the wheel by hand to hear it grinding.

Reply to
Andy Hewitt

Thanks for the advice. It is the drivers rear wheel that is griding. I tried rocking the wheel last week when I first heard the grinding noise and there is no play at all. This is why I suspected the brakes rather than the bearing. Even today their is still no play in the wheel.

Is it possible for the wheel bearings to be going but their be no play noticable. The wheel is solid is will not rock even a slight amount.

Thanks

Reply to
hedwig-0101

Yes, jack it up & spin the wheel, it should feel smooth, if it drags then you need to play with the brakes & then try it again, if it feels rough or makes arumbling noise the bearings buggered. It might be something as simple as a stone in the brake caliper, but it shouldn't be particularly expensive if it is the wheel bearing.

Reply to
DuncanWood

THe rear wheel can actually come off if the bearing fails completely. It is possible for there to be no play.

Reply to
Conor

Possible but not likley IME. Could it be a trapped stone behind the disc (if you have discs on the back)

Reply to
Chris Street

True, I missed the word rear, but hey, the man who never made a mistake never made anything. And what I said about the wheel coming off, or more to the point, not coming off, stands. For the wheel to come off completely would involve ignoring absolutely hideous noises for a considerable time. It would also involve ignoring or failing to notice the jerking and wobbling about as the rear end tried to steer the car.

What the OP needs is not scaremongering, it's realism.

Reply to
shazzbat

Sorry, some unjust payback there :-)

I don't agree. I have seen cars being towed in with a wheel missing. They are just the one's that survive.

You have no idea how often we see cars coming into the workshop that are completely dangerous to drive, yet the owner knows nothing about it.

What you also have to remember is liability as well. If you tell him, without seeing the car remember!, that it's safe to drive, what happens when/if he has an accident?

As far as anything to do with safety goes, take no chances.

Reply to
Andy Hewitt

Seconded, you've got to ignore a noise but many people ignore quite impressive noises, & I've been behind a transit van when the entire wheel & halfshaft came out.

Reply to
DuncanWood

It was somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember DuncanWood saying something like:

I passed a shiteoldtransit at the side of the road a few weeks ago with just that. The offside rear wheel was a good two feet out from the body; the only thing holding the rear of the van up at that side was the remaining length of shaft inside the axle tube. Bet the driver near shit himself as he coasted to a halt.

Reply to
Grimly Curmudgeon

Sadly this was a 2003 model.

Reply to
DuncanWood

Agreed. But remember that for a wheel to come off, which is what the kwikfit place apparently told the OP was likely to happen. various things need to happen, and I'll come back to that in a mo.

Designers have been aware for years of the possibility of wheels coming off due to wheel bearing failure, and have been taking steps to prevent it.

In the case of a front wheel drive car, the normal arrangement for the rear bearing/hub assembly is nowadays to have either a pair of taper roller bearings(adjustable) or one large all-in-one bearing, essentially two bearings in one with the preload on the bearings being maintained by a spacer between the two elements(non-adjustable).

In order to prevent the hub and wheel coming off the car, a bearing retaining device is fitted, this usually is a plate almost the diameter of the bearing itself, either a separate item or as an extended part of the hub nut. Also, to prevent the nut coming off the stub axle and allowing the hub and wheel to come off, a nut retaining arrangement is fitted, usually either a split pin and cage, or a deformable part of the rim of the nut punched into a keyway to prevent loosening.

Now, in order for the hub and wheel to come off due to wheel bearing failure, there has to be - Catastrophic wheel bearing failure involving loss of the balls or rollers to create enough lost motion for the outer race of the bearing to pass over the inner race. *plus* the bearing retaining device has to be missing, probably on last assembly, which in itself is not easy because it is designed to alert the mechanic to a problem, e.g. by running out of thread before the nut tightens. *plus* the nut retaining arrangement has to fail, or be missing, also not that easy. *plus* the driver has to ignore *major* symptoms for a period of time long enough for all this damage to occur.

Now obviously one should never say never, but for all these things to happen together is an extremely long shot, especially as the noise of a completely collapsed bearing is hideous and also causes loss of power due to massive friction losses. Also as I mentioned before, the wheel shakes the car about something terrible. I have twice had recovery customers tell me they could hardly keep the car in a straight line. And in over thirty years of repairing and recovering cars, I have never yet seen one where the wheel has come completely off the car, only been loose enough to cause problems serious enough to stop the car. Tales of "I've seen loads of these" are exaggerations.

In the case of rear wheel drive, like the transit someone mentioned, I have also seen this, but there is an element of fail-safeness about it in that when the half shaft has come out of the diff, the drive is lost and the vehicle stops whether the driver wants to or not.

All in all, I stand by what I said about the likelihood of a wheel coming off, especially where, as in the case of the OP, he is aware that it at least needs looking at.

Steve.

Reply to
shazzbat

It was somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember DuncanWood saying something like:

Probably already done a quarter million miles. :)

Reply to
Grimly Curmudgeon

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