Chris 96 WS6

Hi all, newbie here. Great site BTW.

My wife's daily driver is a 2001 Maxima we bought used 1 year ago from Carmax. It's a pearl white with slate grey leather automatic SE with the 17" wheel option.

Love the car to death, but we do have a problem.

When we first bought it, it had a pair of crappy Kumho tires on the front that were really loud. One of them did this whump whump whump noise as you drove...I figured the belts had shifted in it when it was made or something.

Anyway, we replaced this summer with Falken 512's all around and the noise went away. These are very good tires IMO.

However, recently new issues have come up. First we noticed is on tight turns the whump whump whump has come back, like something is rubbing the fenderwell. I don't think there is any tire contact, we did go with the OEM size. Now there is this little bump you can feel as you drive down the road, as if the tire has a big rock stuck in it. It doesn't do it constantly but most often just at steady cruise.

I pulled both front wheels and inspected CV joint boots, rotors and brake pads and all looks good. Tires look good too. The only thing that concerned me is what I thought was excessive play in the wheelbearings. On a rear drive car if you grab the top and bottom of the front wheel and move back and forth, it shouldn't move. These had play in them. Is that normal for FWD? For Maxima?

What is the most likely culprit? Wheel bearings? CV joint? How expensive are the parts if I go with OEM Nissan stuff?

I will be most likely doing this myself as I've done all the work on my own cars for years and can do pretty much anything (including building a motor on an engine stand) except transmission work. Considering that, how bad of a job will the install be?

Ironic we didn't do a warranty since we were betting on a Nissan having great reliability. I hope this fix doesn't exceed the cost of the warranty we didn't pay for.

maxima0002

Hey Chris 96 WS6,

Welcome to the .Org.. I had a similar issue with my 2k Maxima. This may or maynot be similar to what your experiencing, but thought I'd chime in my thoughts..

One day deciding that this clunking noise was enough, I had a friend check with me and it was a faulty passenger strut that gave me that noise. Replaced it with illuminas and noise never came back.

Two easy ways to test it..
1. Car in Park. Place both hands into the wheel well and hands on the strut/spring assembly, start moving (shifting left/right) and you should feel a slight movement of the whole strut. If you compare this movement with the other side, it feels "looser".

2. Have the maxima in Park. Then have a friend steer the wheel left and right continuously, see if you can hear a noise from that area. Sounds like a spring winding up and then springing loose (sorry, didn't know how to explain it clearer).

That's how i clued into it. Hope that gave you some ideas.. Good luck with your diagnosis..
max0002

Chris 96 WS6

Thanks for the input. I'm fairly confident this is wheel bearings though. Just too much like other cars with wheel bearing problems I have driven.

I called the local dealer and am going to take the car in tommorrow. If it is the WB's they are covered under the extended powertrain warranty. Obviously if they'll do it for nothing that's better than me busting my knuckles and getting dirty myself.

I've got enough on my hands as it is prepping to swap the 6 speed manual into my Trans Am.

namaxima

Let us know how u made out wit the wheel bearing issue, warranty? cost? I feel I have a bad bearing pass side frt, 02' se 6spd, 35k, Axle nut worked it's way loose and now I have a humming at speed from this wheel. Sounds like 44" mudders on the freeway, I have a bird also with a 6spd, procharger, airflow heads, 9"and full cage.