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Can I confirm bad Rear Wheel Bearing(s)?


evh

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I thought my tires on my 2009 Edge AWD were getting noisy but it is just too loud to be tires - I think? It sounds like it is coming from the rear. The rear driver's wheel bearing assembly was replaced about about 100,000 miles. I know have 216,000.

 

Note that when I am driving and sway left and right the noise does not change. I thought it might by changing the load on the bearings. My thinking it is more tires when it behaves like that.

 

Can I jack up the car and spin/move the rear tires and confirm that it is one or both of them? Will I fee grinding or feel play in them?

Edited by evh
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Based on a video I watched, I jacked up each rear tire independently and moved them back and forth and spun each tire. I noticed no grinding or play. I thought each tire would spin freely and they really don't. I have an AWD model and you can tell it moves the drive shaft that is connected to it that leads up to the PTU. So it moves it just a bit (smidge) until it firms up in the PTU and then the wheel turns. I assume it is supposed to do that. It behaved like this on each rear tire.

 

I also went to the place I bought my Bridgestone Dueler ECOPIA's. They only have 35,000 on them and they are 60,000 mile tires. Two are down to 4/32" and two are down to 5/32". They will replace them when they all hit 4/32" and give me roughly $70 on each one as they have worn to fast. I share this as it has been my experience that as tires wear they become noisier and noisier. When these tires were first put on, I couldn't believe how quiet my car was.

 

So I still have a loud howling. It gets louder and quieter with speed and is not impacted at all when I swerve the car one way or the other while driving. It is pretty clear it is coming from the rear.

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  • 1 year later...

2013 Edge Sport AWD here with 77K miles...   I've been having a nasty road noise that has been getting worse over the last month.  I also thought it was tires, (It had some Pirellis that were down to the wear bars), which I needed to replace before winter anyway, so I had new Continental DWS 06 tires put on.  Noise was still there.   Last night I jacked up all 4 corners to see if I could figure out the issue.  When I put it in Drive, all 4 wheels would spin, and I could hear the sound.  So then I just used a board to carefully stop one wheel at a time.  If I stopped the right rear, or either of the fronts, the sound was still there.  BUT when I stopped the left rear, the sound was totally gone.  I ordered up a rear bearing/hub today, and will install it tomorrow.  Hopefully that takes care of my issue.  If it's the rear end or PTU, it'll go to the dealer since I have the powertrain warranty until 100K miles.  (Bought it Certified Pre-Owned).

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  • 5 months later...
On 9/9/2019 at 11:01 AM, Besel53 said:

2013 Edge Sport AWD here with 77K miles...   I've been having a nasty road noise that has been getting worse over the last month.  I also thought it was tires, (It had some Pirellis that were down to the wear bars), which I needed to replace before winter anyway, so I had new Continental DWS 06 tires put on.  Noise was still there.   Last night I jacked up all 4 corners to see if I could figure out the issue.  When I put it in Drive, all 4 wheels would spin, and I could hear the sound.  So then I just used a board to carefully stop one wheel at a time.  If I stopped the right rear, or either of the fronts, the sound was still there.  BUT when I stopped the left rear, the sound was totally gone.  I ordered up a rear bearing/hub today, and will install it tomorrow.  Hopefully that takes care of my issue.  If it's the rear end or PTU, it'll go to the dealer since I have the powertrain warranty until 100K miles.  (Bought it Certified Pre-Owned).

Just wondering, since I may have the same issue, did you replacing the bearing and hub solve your issue?

 

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@mikeyhd I'm facing the same issue on my 2011 AWD but still trying to isolate which wheel. From my research, it seems there is conflicting evidence as to which type of  front bearings are in the car. There are fully assembled hub and bearings that claim to fit the front of my 2011 but also claim to fit the rear. Those are bolt-on replacements that only fit my rear wheels. My 2011 has the front bearing seated in the knuckle casting. Removing the hub from the bearing will likely break the old bearing. I've seen many shops and DIYers simply replace the hub with a new one. It may be a wise choice to have one on hand if you damage the old one removing the broken race that sticks to the hub. The hub could also be corroded and make life difficult.  

The bearing on my 2011 needs to be pressed out of the knuckle after removing the retainer circlip after the hub is removed.  

 

So if you've inspected your front wheels, if the 2013's don't have 4 bolts holding the hub and bearing in, then you'll need the separate bearing, circlip and hub to be sure to avoid problems.  A bearing puller kit with appropriate sized billets and receiver cups will make life easier and I've seen videos where it is done without removing the entire knuckle from the car if you have the kit.

 

I've decided to only order Timken bearings. There have been a few comparisons to Moog (usually very good) and other "knockoff" brands that are inferior and this is a job that I want to last. I saw the bearing for $35 at Carid.com and Amazon has the hub, bearing and clip for about $72 here   

 

Hope this helps answer your question. I'm going to hope it is a rear bearing on mine...

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On 9/9/2019 at 1:39 PM, akirby said:

You can diagnose wheel bearings usually by just jacking up one wheel at a time and spinning it.  Just be sure to have the wheels chocked and the parking brake on while you're doing the fronts.

So even a 4WD will stay still wile spinning the wheel with only one wheel off the ground?

Seems counter-intuitive. I was thinking I need to raise at least one front and one back wheel off the ground  to get the car to sit there while spinning its wheels. Even then, I'm not so sure. Has anyone done this successfully?

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