Rear wheel bearings, complicated?

[patomlin76]

Hi,

Further to my previous post about excess road noise, I am now convinced I have a bearing at the rear starting to fail,

I have a noticeable drone from 15mph upwards, very noticeable. I swapped front to rear tyres to eliminate sawtooth and there was absolutely no difference.

The warranty garage is non-VW. Do you need vcds to check and/or replace rear bearings?

Thanks for any help, I'm ringing the garage tomorrow - bearings are clearly stated as a covered item.

Paul

Edit: noise definitely from the rear - lean forwards towards the windscreen you can hardly hear it, lean back in your seat and Bang! It's there!!


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[-M-]

You may need to use diag equipment to loosen the rear pads off to remove all other parts etc and then to basic set the brakes after the bearing is replaced.

Although the wheels were swapped are different tyres fitted as it can be the tyres that are noisy due to the material of the tyres.

[RichardSEL]

Have your 4-wheel tracking done first by a Laser equipped place. I used a Hunter franchise when my drone started
But she's fine now. So is the road noise.

[zollaf]

jack it up and spin the wheel furiously as fast as you can . use something like a small piece of wood through the wheel. you can usually hear a grumble if the bearing is shot.

[patomlin76]

Ok, so there are loads of variables at the moment, so it is booked in under warranty and I'll see what they say. It is pretty much black and white though... It's either the bearings or it isn't.

If it isn't then ill start looking at the tyres and go from there. Cheers


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[patomlin76]

Zollaf, I tried spinning it but not very quickly when it was jacked up on the drive. Didn't quite know what to listen for but all I could hear was the pads against the disc - it would do half a rotation then stop with the friction. The fronts spin relatively freely. Connected or not???

Thanks!!


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[zollaf]

should really spin a bit better than that.

[patomlin76]

I may be remembering wrongly, maybe it spun a bit better but there definitely was the noise of pad against disc. The fronts don't quite have the same sound - they spin almost silently.

However these brakes were only fitted two months ago and unless pads can shift by themselves I'd think this is not connected with the droning sound.


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[patomlin76]

Mini eureka moment here... Maybe what I am hearing from the rear wheels isn't the brake discs at all, it could be the rough sound of the bearings themselves. Would explain why the fronts are much quieter as all brakes were new at the same time...


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[DSG4ME]

Curve ball time,

Get someone to sit in the back on the kerb side and drive, that drone could be the lift pump on it's way out, mine gave me ear ache such was the drone it made.