Wheel bearing issues? Please give me your 2 cents

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Hi everyone, have a 2004 Mazda 3 and wanted to get your opinions. Car has 100k on it, and is on stock suspension, struts and shocks were replaced around 80k. Suspension has been great since, now I am getting a low creaking noise in the rear suspension at certain times, not necessarily over all bumps, some turns, etc. Checked swaybar endlinks, tight. Bushings are good, no play in the swaybar. I feel it may be the wheel bearings, which I admit I have no knowledge in besides merely google knowledge. The first video linked is my rear driver wheel at rotation, with an obvious sound. The second video is my rear passenger wheel at rotation, with seemingly no or very little sound. My last video is the front tires, shaking the tire left to right. Is that noise normal? Please let me know your opinion. All wheel bearings and Tie Rods are original. Seeing I'm at 9 years and 100,000 I may just get these all taken care of as I really enjoy the car. Video's are linked below.


Wheel Bearing - Youtube

Normal Wheel Bearing - Youtube

Tie Rod - Youtube
 
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bearings, when bad, shall make rumbling noise (dependent to the rotation of the wheel, the higher the RPM, the louder the noise will be).

creaking noise typically comes from rubber-related suspension parts, sometimes may even associate with sway-bar end links and/or struts.

Given the mileage you have and the area you operate your vehicle, I believe you need some rear suspension work done in order to alleviate this "creaking" sound...things like replacing all the sway bar bushings, replace sway bar end links and/or struts and see how that works out?

Q.
 
The play in the steering is noise from the steering rack IMO. I could not hear the rear wheel bearing to determine the cause of the noise. It seems to rotate smoothly. FWIW--Oldtommy
 
I have a 2007 Mazda 3, and my two rear wheels are just like that. It's the bearing. I took the tires off, just rotated the hub, it has that once per rev click.

Could you please do me a favor, please check your rear tire wear. My rear tires are scalloped or cupped they say on the inner edge. Every other tread block is worn, which generarted road noise and a whoop-whoop once per rev noise. I am trying to finds out whether this is caused by the rear bearings. The rear shocks could be causing the tire wear, but I don't feel that the clocks are bad. But I know for sure the bearings are making clicking noise. There is no play in the bearing.

Thanks.
 
Windeye, please see this thread

Tire wear

Post I made recently on this board, second picture is my rears. As you can see, inside of the wheels are worn more than the rest.

How many miles do you have? Just wondering if the bearing is shot or it just makes that noise.
 
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BBuzecky,

Thanks. You don,t seem to have cupping at all on the inner edge. Was that the tire that was on the bad bearing?
My car has about 68k, it's the second set of tires. So the tire cupping may not due to the clicking bearing. Suspension links are tight as far as I can tell, really struggling to understand this tire wear.

Back to your tires, I think you should get rid of them, a satefy issue with the cracks on the tire.
 
Many 3 owners have issues with rear tires with how the camber is set at the factory. If you google rear camber mazda 3 im sure that will answer some questions.
 
clicking sound from your link sounds like brake HW rubbing. If you want to know/differentiate, take off the caliper and pads, mount the wheel again and rotate.

As for uneven tire wear on rears, it's typically camber and/or toe. It's not a bad idea to get some printouts from a full 4-wheel alignment to check the rear first.

Also: weak springs, heavy loads, etc. will alter the dynamic wheel alignment characteristics, causing the rears to "squat" out leading to accelerated inner tire wear.

Q.

Here's a good one to share RE: EricDaCarGuy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=scFbb43fwqk
 
Sorry to bring the zombie thread back to life, but my 2012 Ford Focus is also having issues like this. Was there any resolution?

The car has a pretty aggressive stance (-2.2* camber in the rear and a little toe-in in the rear, toe-out in the front which is pretty normal). My 18" summer tires are pretty much worm out on the outside edge (which I would assume is due to the toe-in of the alignment) but the inside edge is cupped every-other tread like on your 3.

Also, my rear tires make the same clicking which jacked up and I was thinking that it's the wheel bearings going. If I take off all of the brake hardware and it still clicks, is it definitely a bad bearing?

Link to the focus site: http://www.focusfanatics.com/forum/showthread.php?t=319374

EDIT: I have Michelin Pilot Sport 3 tires (235/40R18)
 
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My wife's 08 Mazda3 has the same clicking sound from the rear wheels as well which is weirding me out. I'm "monitoring" it currently but I'm guessing I'll end up replacing the bearings eventually barring other information. I have not tried taking the brakes off yet.

It's weird because it's definitely NOT a normal wheel bearing "growl" sound, and it's on both wheels. No discernible noise from in the car while driving, and no discernible play. I too wonder whether the bearings are actually going bad or this is just a "quirk", but it seems like not all of them make the sound so it must be a symptom of something. Hopefully not urgent, but it would be a very easy noise never to notice. I can't even hear it on mine when I'm spinning the wheel if a car is driving by on the road outside the house -- there's gotta be low ambient noise.

FWIW the first set of tires on our car also wore horribly on the inside edge of the rear, but the second set have worn better with a more diligent rotation schedule, and after a little bit of alignment adjustment (although the alignment tested as in spec before as well). The rear camber AND the toe specs are pretty crazy on this car. The current tires aren't going to have an extraordinarily long life but at least they're wearing evenly.
 
Originally Posted By: rationull
[...]after a little bit of alignment adjustment (although the alignment tested as in spec before as well). The rear camber AND the toe specs are pretty crazy on this car.


Same with my Focus! I just purchased adjustable camber arms for the rear since the -2.2* of camber was bothering me and I think it, combined with the toe of at least one wheel, was causing my cupping issue. I'm also going to play with the toe and try to get it as close to 0 as possible (within spec).
 
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Just wanted to give an update on this. The heel-toe wearing issue happened on my summer and winter tires even though I had an alignment. I told the alignment place to check my bearings because I suspected they were bad and of course they didn't. It's happening on all 4 tires, but both rear bearings are making this noise, so I think they're the culprit(s). Now that it's finally warm out I was able to take a video of my car with the brake pads off:
Winter Tires:
13651806543_3c09023890_b.jpg

13651791895_0ccda23b58_b.jpg

Summer Tires (I know, they're almost bald now but I was driving on them for 20k miles after they started making noise):
9673657190_419489fa99_b.jpg

Car slowing down to a stop:

Rear bearing click...?
 
Sure did. About 2 weekends ago. I also changed the upper control arms to get the camber closer to 0. It's too soon to say if it worked....

But I guess we'll never really know for sure if it was the camber/toe combination or the bearings, but I have my money on the bearings since cars have had negative camber and toe (in) for years without getting this wear. The driver's side camber was -1.5 and the toe was 0.07". I hardly think that would cause an issue in itself, that's why I replaced the bearings.

I replaced the upper control arms because I was afraid the bearings failed in the first place because of all of that negative camber. I still have to fix the toe a bit. (shhh...)
 
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Originally Posted By: BBuzecky
Bushings are good,


You have to bounce the whole car around when you check those. Just grabbing control arm won't do it.
 
FYI today I replaced the rear hubs on the Mazda3 mentioned earlier. The clicking noise was clearly audible when rotating the hub with no brake parts still attached, but was NOT audible when the hub was unbolted from the knuckle. So the sound was transmitting through the suspension or the brake rotor dust shield pretty well. Still must've been coming from the bearings. The new ones are silent.
 
Originally Posted By: BearZDefect
Unnecessarily replacing wheel bearings is a big mistake. Don't ask how I know.

Read carefully what Quest and rationull wrote.


I'm not sure what conclusion to draw from what I wrote. The bearings may not be bad but they were making noise, and the new ones are silent.
 
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