Front wheel bearing - Toyota Nation Forum : Toyota Car and Truck Forums

ghost111 · 03-02-2011, 02:29 PM

1999 Camry 3.0. I have front brake rotor pulsation in the drivers side front. My mechanic checked it out and said it's a bad wheel bearing. Is this logical?
Thanks

***fenixus*** · 03-02-2011, 03:40 PM

not really. but maybe he meant that on top of warped rotor you have a bad wheel bearing?

really hot brakes (like driving with seriously dragging brakes for a few years) over time can easily kill wheel bearings.

with front of car jacked up and trans shifted into Neutral Gear, after you remove the wheel and unbolt caliper, does this wheel spin freely?

***BMR*** · 03-02-2011, 04:48 PM

If the wheel bearing has a enough runout or free-play, it's possible. The brake rotor is ultimately bolted to it, and the caliper is not. So the bearing runout would show up as rotor runout, which in turn could cause some pulsing in the brakes.

I believe my Camry had that problem, because replacing the bearings fixed a vibration/pulsing problem on it. But I also think it's somewhat rare.

blaanjunk77 · 03-02-2011, 04:55 PM

i had a wheel bearing that just went out on my corolla bout 2 weeks ago. it started knocking and getting worse the more you drove it. if you jack the front end up and if the tire has a little bit of play when u pull it towards you and push it away then its most likely a bad bearing.

ghost111 · 03-02-2011, 05:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BMR

If the wheel bearing has a enough runout or free-play, it's possible. The brake rotor is ultimately bolted to it, and the caliper is not. So the bearing runout would show up as rotor runout, which in turn could cause some pulsing in the brakes.

I believe my Camry had that problem, because replacing the bearings fixed a vibration/pulsing problem on it. But I also think it's somewhat rare.

Maybe rare because the bearings do not wear out very often. However this one has 150K miles. Might be time.

stlwil · 03-02-2011, 05:39 PM

i neglected to change a bad caliper on front driver for about 2 years.i believe that it pushed the bearing back a little..i hade to use washers inder the roter to keep caliper mount brakets from scraping the back side of roter

***fenixus*** · 03-02-2011, 05:49 PM

I had both front bearings bad (seized eventually) on my V6 during Winter. did I have any play during wheels shake test? no. did I hear rattle or severe humming at highway speeds? no. did the car stop driving? no.

so what happened is that inner race of bearing separated from hub and started turning around the hub together with outer race of bearing... car was basically running on hubs for the whole Winter

you don't want to have this issue, look how worn the hubs were after bearing removal (top parts of hubs):

old bearings scattered and disintegrated on removal.

***BMR*** · 03-02-2011, 09:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ghost111

Maybe rare because the bearings do not wear out very often. However this one has 150K miles. Might be time.

Yeah, I agree, it seems to be a bit rare. It took me forever to figure out what was causing the vibration/pulsing on mine. So I'm not sure when it started. I *think* is was at around 180k - 200k miles. After balancing tires & turning/replacing rotors umpteen times (& a whole lot more stuff), I finally replaced the bearings at around 280k miles, which fixed it. It's been ridin' smooth as buttah ever since.

But I'd still say it's not first thing I'd suspect. A suspect?... yep. But I wouldn't go there until after doing other, cheaper attempts at fixing it first. If you do the work yourself, wheel bearings are about $100 per corner.