I drive a long distance to work and back: 200 miles each day.
My 2009 Elantra has over 400,000 KMS on it.
I’m hearing a noise from a wheel bearing. In fact maybe all four.
How much longer can I drive on a noisy wheel bearing?
What are the roadside failure implications?
A bearing going out? It depends on how long the bearing will last. Maybe months maybe tomorrow it fails there is no way of knowing. Also a bearing going out can do major damage to the car over time making a simple job very expensive.
How far away is the nearest place that can replace the bearing?
The problem is I’m skint, as the British say.
Going through a divorce; child support payments, yadadyya…
I’m wondering how long I can drive on a noisy wheel bearing, and what failure mechanism may occur on the highway.
One of the many things that sucks about having a long commute is that niggling little problems like wheel bearings that normal people might be able to blow off for years will come around to bite you in the butt pretty quickly. I say this from experience.
Most likely, nothing catastrophic will happen. Worst case the bearing could come apart and the wheel could lock up. Most likely it’ll just get louder, rolling resistance will go way up and the wheel will get wobbly which will lead to crummy gas mileage and really bad uneven tire wear. Again, for normal people that might not be that big of a deal but at 200 miles a day…
You should also at least get someone to put it on a lift to confirm the diagnosis. There’s other things that make a similar noise, not the least of which is a tire on the verge of coming apart. Plus if it does turn out to just be one bearing it’s not like it’s a very expensive repair.
I would stop driving immediately and check it out. Tire noise gets blamed for a lot of wheel bearing noise. As far as I am concerned a noisey wheel bearing has allready failed and can lock up at any moment.
You have to weigh up the cost of getting rescued from the highway and missing half a day’s work; then paying top rates because you can’t shop around, against the cost of taking it to someone local and getting it fixed now.
Years ago in college I ignored a failing rear wheel bearing. Eventually it got stuck enough that the outer race began to turn in the bearing carrier instead.
I drove some distance that way before the whole thing failed by the bearing wearing outward through the bearing retainer and then the whole wheel and half-axle pulled out of the differential. Tearing up the brakes as it went.
By some incredible convenience it finally pulled out as I was parking at my apartment.
But instead of needing a new $10 (in 1980) rear wheel bearing that we could have pulled and re-pressed with hand tools I instead needed most of the running gear for an entire corner of the car. You name it and it was too damaged to use. For $400 in junkyard parts and over a day’s work, two gearheads who already owned a shop full of tools got 'er done.
Had I needed a tow or had I needed to pay for labor, or had I needed to buy new parts this would have been a $1000 repair. In 1980 on a generic GM with very common and very cheap low tech 1960s era parts.
Since then I’ve treated wheel bearings as something that gets fixed as soon as I can hear them. Conversely I’ll run CV joints to near death, but it’s real important to accurately diagnose what’s actually making the noise. And you sure can’t do that without a lift and some experience.
I pushed a rear bearing too far. It got very loud, scraping to the point that I drove very slowly. It destroyed the ABS sensor in the process, but that seemed to be the only real harm, well and the towing job.
I got a quote on a wheel bearing today. Just to purchase it myself is $86. Throw in tax and it’s $100 CDN, just to purchase the bearing. Which is about $80 USD. Is that right?
That’s probably about right for the whole bearing/hub assembly. If you take it to a shop, though, they should be able to replace only the bearings themselves and reuse the hub which should be a little cheaper parts-wise.
On some cars with sealed bearings the bearing/hub assembly just bolts right onto the spindle, so it’s actually a pretty easy DIY job if you buy the whole assembly. I couldn’t tell you if your Hyundai is one though.
Ah. Thanks. I thought that was a lot for a bearing. I can do it myself I believe. Can you recommend a Youtube video for the hub replacement that is similar to my 2009 Elantra?
Thanks Jack.
Well, note I did say “on some cars.” On other cars the bearings are pressed right into the spindle, so you have to pull the whole spindle/knuckle (which means breaking the ball joints loose) and then have a machine shop actually press in the bearings. If that’s the case, on my own personal “aggravation versus savings” matrix it moves the job over from DIY to let the pros do it. It’s one of those jobs that someone with the right tools can actually do pretty fast, so you’re not saving that much in labor, but it can turn into a real headache if you’re trying to do it in your driveway.
I hear ya. I’m sure I could do it myself, but in my current situation I don’t have access to a back-up vehicle, so I should take it in. But I can’t afford to right now. And I’m stressed… over this and 3 or 4 other things.
Life is wearing me down, of late.
Your wheel bearing is a sealed unit and these are really trouble free. It is unlikely that you have a bad one, even more unlikely that you have more than one.
Since you already know that the cost is about $86 I assume that you know it looks like this:
These units seldom fail.
And yes, any marginally competent person with the proper tools can change one. But if you have wheel noise the most common source is worn brakes. How long since you have had brake service?
You can buy a new wheel hub assembly and change it yourself. Unplug the ABS sensor and you probably have 4 bolts to remove. But I would really think about other noise sources, like worn brakes, before I replaced the wheel bearing hub.
The sealed units last the “lifetime of the car” but they’re still a wear and tear item and having to replace them on higher mileage cars isn’t unusual. The thing is that they’re one of the few parts that actually does wear essentially as a direct function of mileage. So on a car like the OP’s where it’s racked up huge numbers of (presumably) highway miles, those miles have been easy on the drivetrain, suspension, interior, etc but to the wheel bearings miles are miles.
I agree with confirming the diagnosis, but I wouldn’t be at all surprised if after 400,000 kilometers the bearings are simply reaching the end of their useful lifespan.
Oh, also on the DIY front, since I’m only really seeing the bearing/hub assemblies for the rear on this car I’m guessing the front bearings are pressed into the knuckle. So doing the rears will probably be easyish, but the fronts less so. Perhaps consult a Hyundai enthusiast forum (they exist!) for more details.
Yes I had 3 out of 4 go all around the same time (275,000 miles) wondering how much longer that one original hold out will hang on.
To be sure, 400,000kms is a hefty hunk-o-distance and wheel bearings might be getting close to the end of their lives.
How sure is the OP the problem isn’t brakes or CV joints? Or some of each? They all sound pretty similar as they wear, at least to the layman.
First get or make a definite diagnosis. No point in spending time and trouble chasing after the wrong thing.
To check a wheel bearing, raise the tire off the ground and spin the wheel by hand (tranny in neutral for the drive wheels) while touching the spring, strut, or other structure connected to the wheel hub area. You’ll be able to feel the vibration of a faulty bearing. Check all four wheels.
It is not unlikely that a wheel bearing is failing. It is unlikely that more than one has gone bad, though it’s certainly not impossible.
Wheel bearings wear at a geometric rate – the worse they get, the faster they get worse. It’s generally impossible to predict how soon one might fail until it gets really noisy which usually means imminent doom. It could go from moderately noisy to totally shot in a hundred mile drive, so if it’s determined to be bearing noise it would probably be wise to do whatever it takes (beg, borrow, steal) to fix it now, when you have some choice of when and by whom, than to risk breakdown on the highway.
Just as a data point, I had bearings fail on both front wheels on my 2002 Elantra. Happened around 75,000 miles, IIRC. My same-year-as-OP Elantra has no bearing issues.