Symptoms:

Whirring noise I thought I might have been imagining (noone else could hear it) for 2 years. Finally decided it was the slotted rotors.....but now I'm thinking otherwise.
Car pulls to right
Passenger side wheel has 1/8" - 1/4" play when jacked up (no play when on ground) - driver's side wheel is totally firm.
There is play BOTH left to right and up/down (shaking wheel with hands at 3 and 9 and also 6 and 12).

Story:

The whirring noise has been happening to me through 2 tranny swaps and 4 alignments (2.5 years) - I went to Firestone last weekend to get another alignment and they said the wheel bearing was loose and the alignment was fine - but because of the wheel bearing it would pull to right until I got it fixed. <---this sound plausible?

I decided since they "forgot" to give me a print out of the alignment they were probably just giving me ****.

But tonight I went and checked for play - and yep - there it is. Play as described above - and again - other wheel is dead firm.

Checked the axle nut with a torque wrench and it's well over 150lbs (my torque wrench only goes to 150)

Wheel bearing?

 

Buy yourself a new wheel bearing from Nissan ($55) or aftermarket ($35) and the inner and outer seal. I guarantee that is your problem. Have any garage with a hydraulic press slap the new bearing, snap rings and the seals into your existing hub and you're done. I did my pass. side yesterday and what a world of difference when I took it for a test drive. I almost forgot how ultrasmooth the maxima was. Trust me on this one because if you do not take care of this right away it can become dangerous - i.e. wheel falls off on highway. I'm not kidding! I had the same symptoms as you described above to the tee. You'll thank me later. Good luck! -bobby

 

Your wheel will NOT fall off, but get it fixed. Definately sounds like a wheel bearing. I just had similar problems, but it turned out it was one of the things that holds the bearing on the hub had come lose and chewed the hub to hell.

 

Well, it's been like this for over 2 years - so I'm not too worried about the wheel falling off. Not to mention I know that is pretty much impossible. (Not TOTALLY out of the realm of possibility - but 99.9999% unlikely).

Anyway - It's good to know that I have a solution for the pulling to the right and the whirring noise everyone thought I was imagining.

 

in addition to the whinning noise my car would pull left under acceleration and right when coasting mostly on the high way

 

What did the noise sound like? I think i might have a bad drivers side one, it makes a noise as if the brakes were worn out but i just did a whole front and back rotor + pad swap like two weeks ago I also suspected my brakes were the culprit of the noise, but the wweeeeeheheheee noise is still there as I pick up speed it fades away...??

 

My noise is a very very quiet whirring noise at aobut the 100-150MHz frequency (low) range - almost indiscernable from road noise....