front end howl in a 96 cabrio?

bearing failure. but be sure the sound comes from the front. ive seen a lot of people saying th front end howls and its the REAR bearings that failed.

Could be something as simple as a piece of road debris (newspaper, rag, leaf, etc.) stuck underneath the car somewhere.

With a front bearing, there will usually be a noise change as you steer left vs right.

Definitely from the front. Good suggestion though. How involved is replacing the front bearings? Simple job or one that requires major effort and pressing out bearings?

Which would have been obvious when I had the tires rotated. No visible signs of anything out of the ordinary underneath.

$tealership, now that's a very naughty word!

Simple job if you have an hidraulic press and an alignemnt machine :)

(best left to a shop)

My first guess would be the left front wheel bearing.

When you turn to the right, the weight of the car shifts a bit to the left, increasing the bearing noise.

The bearings have to be pressed out, and new ones pressed in.

This requires removing the axle nut, removing the wheel, disconnecting the strut from the A-Arm, and pulling the drive shaft away from the strut.

You can then remove the wheel hub and take it to a shop to have the bearings pressed in and out with a hydraulic press (Used to cost me $10, but the last time cost me over $50). Once you get everything reassembled, you'll need to get an alignment.

Alternatively, you can leave the hub on the car, and use a special tool that presses the bearings in and out on the car. It's basically a giant bolt with appropriate adapters to contact only the bearing surfaces. The tool costs about $150 or so (when I bought mine), but it's more convenient than having to take the hub to a shop. And, it doesn't affect the alignment of the car.

If you expect to do this more than a few times, the tool is well worth the money.

My wife used to have a roaring sound on her 1986 Jetta. I tried rotating the tires, no change. Replaced all wheel bearings, no change. Replaced both drive shafts, no change. Replaced wheel bearings again, no change. Even had the transmission rebuilt, no change...

Turned out to be the tires afterall. Once they wore down to a certain point, then got hard and made lots of road noise.

A very expensive lesson...

Anthony

I second everyone's "bearing" answer. My A2 GTI is doing the same thing right now (for the 3rd time too...grrrr!). It's been doing it for a while...i've been kinda lazy about getting it fixed this time.

I just had a really bad front wheel bearing replaced at the dealership.

After it was done, I still had a bad howl in the car. However the second noise did not change as you were steering. I have known for a while that my rear bearings were going too. I replaced them and now nice quiet car (well its a diesel - quieter)!

BTW, the earlier post that said you can't tell rear wheel noise from front was right on. If you went in my car you would have sworn the noise was coming from the front.

DC

I made that mistake once, thats why I gave the advice. I replaced the fron bearings in the dealer, who charged me over US$300 for the job and the noise changed nothing.

I then changed the rear bearings (myself for US$30) and no more noise.