Well........My front driver side wheel bearing is finally starting to go at 138,000 miles. I am going to replace it and the other side myself with the help of my FSM and any advice you fellow maxima orgers have. Please share any advice or tips you may have. Also, does anyone know of a good place to order the bearings from?

 

Tips: Axle nut is 36mm, wedge a big screwdriver or chisel into the brake vents if you don't have an assistant to hold the brakes, Also heat is your freind, propane torch makes the strut bolts and caliper bracket bolts MUCH easier

 

If you have ABS, don't even bother trying to take the sensor out of the hub, it will more then likely be rusted in permanently. Instead, disconnect it from the engine bay and slide it out, but be very careful of course. Oh... and I ended up taking the hub off and had a shop replace my bearings for 60 (labor alone). The bearing requires a 2-3 ton hydraulic press to be pushed out. I purchased the parts from either autozone or advanced (timken). You'll want to get it realigned after this.

 

is there a manual way of getting the bearings out? i thought i've seen a bearing extracting assy somewhere in the posts.... a big bolt with some heavy duty washers the same diameter as bearings?

 

bearings need to be pressed in. check motorvate.ca for the wheel bearing write up

 

http://www.motorvate.ca/mvp.php/706

that's it!

 

just out of curiosity, how much does a new wheel bearing run? ive got a front end rattle that ive narrowed down to either the strut mounts or wheel bearings...i have KYB mounts on the way...but if they dont do the trick i will probably end up doing wheel bearings. (althought i jacked up the car and grabbed the tire at 12 & 6 and tryed shaking it for play and there wasnt any...thats why im doing mounts 1st)

 

I just paid 52.00 each from autopartswarehouse.com

 

In my experience the wheel will have play in all directions with a shot bearing.

 

what does a bad wheel bearing sound like? I've done all this suspesion crap and just got an allignment to find out that i have this weird dying giraffe noise when doing about 20-25mi/hr

 

bad bearings hum. the hum gets louder as you go faster. hum remains the same whether going straight or turning. bad bearings dont have a lot of play when they first start to go bad. make sure you are trying to move the hub while keeping the rest o the knuckle still if you are trying to test the bearings. If there is a tonne of play, you may have a bad hub also (in this situation replacing the bearings will be a waste of your money). to tell if the hub is bad also, take off the streering knuckle and look at the rear end of the hub/bearing to see if it is still perfectly round)

 

$52 isnt bad. but im not really hearing a hum from mine so now its got to be the mounts. if they dont do the trick...then im stumped. cause the sway bar bushings look fine and struts are only a few months old.

 

This car is a mystery (an awesome one). I was driving home now with the windows open trying to listen to that wierd, scraping "eeeee" noise. Everything is quet just the VQ purring . All seems well or even excellent! (I hope) This 56 degree weather seems ideal for this car It seemed uber smooth & silky.

 

"eeeee" = brake pad guide letting you know it is low. (most of the time) It may have broken off. check your pads.

 

I've checked my pads 2 weeks ago, they should be fine. THanks a lot
2damizzax! I hope i'll stay nice & quet like this. )

 

On the front left of my car, I have replace the bearing 3 times. One right after the other since the humming did not go away. The noise is the same as the bearing. Could the knuckle be out of round and therefore press the bearing out of round and cause it to grind still?? I am totally stumped on this and am tired of taking the front end apart. Where would I get a new knuckle anyways? Junk yard?
Thanks!

 

a bad hub (the part the holds the studs) with new bearings = a wasted set of bearings. look for rounding on the rear of the hub. look for movement between the hub and the bearing itself on the rear of the hub when you have the spindle off.

 

Any ideas about what could cause a bad hub? Would it be suitable to get one from a junk yard, or just buy a brand new one? Thanks for the idea, I'll look into it as soon as this bearing gets bad enough to change it again.......

 

bad hub is caused by riding on bad bearings too long. too much play is allowed to develop and the hub itself begins to rub. I would go new only but that is me.

 

I'd suggest having your bearings pressed. I removed bearings without a press, and it was a PITA. Not only that, but the bearing died within a month. The second bearing was pressed out, and new one pressed in with new seals. I only paid 10-15 to have pepboys press it in.

 

why not get oem? they're only 36 bucks iirc..

 

hummm... an ipact gun will also do the trick..

 

heynow,

I have had a similar issue, the one you creatively described as a "dying giraffe sound" (I love that description although I've never been to Africa, so I can't comment on your accuracy).
How about starting a thread for our benefit. You can call it "dying giraffe sound". You can post up some ofthe info below, which I think outlines the problem pretty thoroughly.

I first noticed this squeak noise the summer I bought the car (in 2005, 80K km, 98 SE). It is an intermittent problem, and has been present intermittently ever since, going on 2 years now. It appears to be about the same magnitude as when I first noticed it whenever it crops up.

You have also observed (your quoted post) that it sometimes doesn't present at all -I notice that too.

I haven't been able to pin it down to any specific circumstances, except that to hear it, I have to going slow. I would most often hear the sound as whine that decreases in pitch as I would come to a stop (much easier to hear with the HVAC off, stereo off, window open). Definitely, as you say, it comes from the drivers side wheel well. It is also definitely a rubber "squeak" sound that becomes a shrill, continuous squeal at higher speeds. On my car it is masked or goes away above about 40 or 50 km/h. It's kind of embarassing, because as you drive around at low speeds, say looking for parking, it whines pretty loud the whole time. People look at you funny thinking you're driving a beater with a failing transmission!

When it was happening I did the following "tests" at low speed 5-15mph:
I tried shifting into neutral -still hear it.
I rocked the steering side to side -sometimes this would cause it go away briefly after the wheels are straight again, but then it might again come back a minute or so later, driving straight.
I coasted to a stop without using the brakes -I can hear it the whole time.

Anyway,I did research this on the org and I found this thread, were there was a recording/video if the sound:
http://forums.maxima.org/showthread....58751&t=503816

Now I'm sure that's the EXACT sound I have, and it sounds like your issue as well. Nobody responded to that post other than to point to a brake issue, which seems unlikely given my "coasting to a stop test".

For a while, last summer, I thought it might be a wheel bearing. I asked my mechanic to listen to it and he thought it wasn't a wheel bearing. He said he thought it was a CV boot squeaking, rubbing as the serrations in the boot come togther and then go apart as the shaft rotates. Certainly this fits with the rubber squeak nature of the sound and the fact that it is intermittent.

One final note; It rarely happens when I first drive away cold, but I can often get the sound back by driving on the freeway for a 10 minutes or so.

Sorry for the VERY LONGWINDED post.
I feel this is a thorough explanation of a problem that others having been hinting at, and the video is pretty helpful too.

Anyone solve this by replacing or adjusting the CV boots?

THANKS to all!

 

Thanks for sharing your experience Brian !! : --- and welcome to the ORG!

I haven't really had a chance to listen to it again. (It's been REALLY cold around here lately) On 2nd thought, it seems like i *might* have had like a small rock in between the brake pad & rotor. It was more like a rock/metal-on-metal scraping sound. Hopefully it's gone for good, but i'll let you guys know if it returns.

 

at autozone the bearing are around $34 for the timkin bearing. i did it like this. i took my spindle off and brought the spindle and the bearing i bought up to a shop. They took the old one out and put the new one in and put the seals on for $10. Then i took it back to my house put the spindle back on.......it was real easy and the $10 i spent to get the shop to change the bearing out saved me the time of doing it myself.