My SO brought her car for a winterization at the Toyota dealership. It’s a 2005 Corrola, in great shape.
When we began driving it home after the winterization [where they did take all the tires off, and inspect the brake systems] the driverside tire had a bit of a grind on it going about 20 mph. So we brought it back and said, hey this was not happening before, what gives?
We ended up leaving it because it was close to 5, and they said they’d get back to us. Well the next day they said they could not hear the noise…then we called the manager and HE said he could not hear the noise. So, we went down there and they said we drive these all the time we know what to look for…So we got in the car with the Tech and manager and " Holy Sh*t there’s the grinding noise."!
So they take it and say they will look into it.
Next day they said it was a wheel bering and that WE had to pay for it.
So, what could the dealership do to screw up a wheel bering while it was in their care? Hit a jack going onto the lift? Put the Lugs on wrong and make the tire screw it up? Is this possible? What should we do??
Wheel bearings usually don’t go all of a sudden. Still, the noise has to start some time and this was the time. I understand you scratching your head, but I would pay and be glad they fixed it. Maybe they should have spotted it earlier, but apparently the noise comes and goes. They would have spotted it earlier because it’s their business to generate more business.
Couldn’t it just be a coincidence? Why do you assume that because they touched your car that they caused a problem? I’m not sure about that particular model, but I would think it would be difficult to accidentally damage a wheel bearing… but certainly not impossible.
The only possible way I can think of is if that wheel was seized onto the hub from not having copper grease applied the last time it was put back on, and they hit it from behind with a sledgehammer. I have seen this done in the past, by people who I consider competent mechanics, to no ill effect but I always thought it couldn’t be doing the bearing/wheel any good.
I’m not suggesting that this is what has happened, I think it’s far more likely that the bearing just happened to wear out, it’s a 5 year old car, you have to expect things like bearings, bushings, suspension components etc. to start failing sometime.
Only other thing could be IF it was a rear wheel and IF the car has rear drum brakes and IF they are of a certain design with the bearing incorporated into the brake drum and IF they disassembled them to check the condition and IF the workshop was dirty and they weren’t careful about keeping grit out of the bearing, then that MIGHT cause the noise you described and eventually wear out the bearing, but it’s a very remote possibility. Bearings tend to be fairly well sealed nowadays, when one fails it tends to be because it has reached the end of it’s life?
This car has sealed bearings on the front wheels, and bearing/hub assemblies (also sealed) on the rear wheels. The bearings cannot be taken apart nor serviced, and can only be accessed with a fair amount of disassembly of other parts. I have never seen this type of bearing suffer from someone “doing something” to it. They fail from wear and tear, or occasionally from serious impact (bend-the-wheel serious, like hitting something solid at 30 mph). I really can’t think of any plausible cause and effect where the dealership messed up the wheel bearing.
ETA: We have the word “coincidence” because coincidence exists.
Are you sure it is a wheel bearing? A wheel bearing wouldn’t suddenly fail, it would start getting louder and louder, gradually over time. Also it wouldn’t generally manifest as a “grinding” sound. I don’t really know how to describe it, but grinding is not a word I’d use.
You said the sound becomes noticable at 20mph. When you go faster, does it get louder? ETA: Does the pitch change with the vehicle’s speed?
Also, the #1 indicator of a bad wheel bearing, in my experience: if the sound is coming from the right side of the car, does it go away when making a left-hand turn, and if it’s from the left, does it go away when making a right-hand turn? When you turn in the opposite direction of the noise, load will be taken off the bearing and the sound will diminish considerably, or vanish completely.
What GaryT and teletype said. In my experience wheel bearings fail gradually, the balls/rollers in the bearing become flat-spotted or pitted from fatigue, which leads to a humming sound while driving. ETA: that humming sound changes pitch (and often intensity) with road speed. Normally that humming sound gradually gets louder, and frequently can be isolated by the procedure teletype mentioned.
I should know, my Neon’s been through three front wheel bearings in the time I’ve had it :o
EATA: it’s possible that tire noise can sound like a wheel bearing, if the tire is cupped or flat-spotted. if one of the back tires was irregularly worn/cupped, and they rotated the tires bringing a bad one to the front, it could potentially sound like a bad wheel bearing.
“Winterization” sounds like a ripoff itself. Regular maintenance is sufficient, cars don’t need “winterization”.
If “winterization” is simply a term for a normal service that occurs prior to the winter, that’s one thing. But don’t buy into any bullshit that claims you need to do anything special to winterize your car (other than snow tires).
Went back and forth with the Dealership Service Manager, then the Dealership Service Director - I understand 2 things:
[ul]
[li]Wheel bearings don’t just fail, they gradually go[/li][/ul]
[ul]
[li]The Service Director after inspecting the vehicle and speaking with the Master Mechanic [without us around] came back and said we need to replace the Bearing, he’ll take 50% off the price.[/li][/ul]
Conjecture:
To me something went wrong because Dealerships never take money off, or it’s a small discount, not meet me half way - especially at a Toyota Dealership.
I drive the vehicle all the time, and there has been no grinding of any kind on that side. I wish I were a better mechanic because I would understand how this bearing or bearing hub could have been damaged on a simple 50k inspection and winterization.
The coincidence that it happened when the car was in their care is pretty compelling to me. But in the end it’s $260 and not $525…
Usually both sides are changed together. Maybe he’s just changing one side to keep you happy. It wouldn’t be easy to do something to the wheel bearing unintentionally, and if they wanted to rip you off, unecessary brake work is the traditional scam. So maybe you got lucky. Bearings can fail, and in the right conditions cause the wheel to seize. On a drive wheel, that can get very expensive.
The bearing will be louder when more weight is on that wheel.
Was it was the front right side?
Louder with two people in the car.
Louder on left turns and almost silent on right turns.
I have replaced many and you just all of a sudden seem to notice the noise when it has actually been creeping up all along.
Different tires may have possibly increased noise transmission or you didn’t have the radio on or what ever.
Probably not the dealers fault.
In rethinking that, I’ve always changed them in pairs, and every one I know who replaced them did it in pairs, but all of those cases were maintenance on old cars, not broken bearings. But then $525 seems on the steep side for replacing one bearing, although at a dealership you probably get the highest quote.
that might be because on a lot of older cars, the bearings weren’t sealed; the bearing races were part of the front brake drum/rotor and anytime you did the brakes it was recommended to clean, inspect, and repack both bearings (there were two per wheel.)
modern cars with sealed wheel bearings typically have one bearing assembly per wheel.
