Your vehicle’s wheel bearings keep your wheels rolling smoothly and safely.
If they’re not working properly, it can impact your driving safety, cause your tires to wear unevenly, creates noise and can set off your ABS light. This is a serious problem for your vehicle and should be fixed ASAP.
But how do you check whether your wheel bearings need work? ChrisFix reviews this problem with some great tips, including:
- Safety steps while checking bearings
- Three ways to check your bearings
- How to eliminate other problems
- Using computer diagnostics on your car
The above video will walk you through these processes, delivering a lot of information in a short period of time dealing with your vehicle’s wheel bearings. During the video, ChrisFix discusses several issues which we’ll cover below to help you get the most out of your diagnostics.
Learn more below:
Diagnose Your Wheel Bearings or Take it to a Shop?
There are a number of parts on your car where diagnosing something on your vehicle can seem like a very complicated process that requires a lot of expensive equipment, but wheel bearings are not one of them. It’s a relatively straightforward process that you can walk through step by step.
However, most vehicle models and even different years of the same model may look a bit different than the one in the video, so having a good repair manual for your vehicle can make a big difference in locating and identifying parts. These are available in physical and digital forms.
If you’re willing to put a little time and effort into the process, you’ll learn much more about how your vehicle works, which makes it easier to tell whether there’s an actual problem or if a repair shop is taking advantage of you. This does require some tools and equipment.
In many cases, people turn to repair shops because they’re not comfortable working with their vehicle, do not have the free time, or do not feel they are physically capable of the process. With the exception of time, the rest can be learned or worked around with the right tools.
How to Check Your Wheel Bearings: Three Techniques for Diagnosing Problems
Technique 1: Listen for Noise
The first way to check for a bad wheel bearing is to listen for noise. If your vehicle suddenly starts making a lot more noise, almost like a low-tone howling or excessive wind noise, you might suspect the bearing and go on to one of the other tests to verify.
This is also one of the fastest ways to determine which bearing is going out, as the noise is often loud enough to pinpoint which wheel is making the excessive noise. Make sure to open your windows so that you can more easily tell the direction of the noise.
Technique 2: Shaking the Tire
The second way to check for a bad wheel bearing is by physically shaking the tire. You’ll need to start by chocking the other tires or placing a block in line with them to prevent them from rolling.
Before you begin jacking up the tire, make sure it’s on a level spot and put boards underneath the jack to distribute the weight evenly on pavement. Once you’ve jacked up the suspected axle, place jack stands beneath the axle to firmly support it.
Grab the tire at the three- and nine-o’clock positions and shake it in and out. If you have a lot of play in the tire’s movement, it could indicate a bad bearing. Now move your hands to the twelve- and six-o’clock positions and repeat the process.
This is why proper jack safety is important because you don’t want the vehicle falling onto your hand. If you have play at the second position, it’s almost certainly a bearing. If you do not, it could be a bad tie rod, which is a steering component.
Using this test, you may be able to even hear the rattling in the bearing. To verify that it is the bearing, look behind the tire and see whether the tie rod, upper ball joint or lower ball joint moves when you shake the tire.
However, lack of play may not indicate a good bearing. This is why it’s important to know multiple ways to test the bearings. You can hear a grittiness when the bearing moves, such as when you spin the tire when the vehicle is jacked up.
Technique 3: OBD (Onboard Diagnostic) Scanner
The third test uses an OBD (onboard diagnostics) scanner on most newer vehicles. If your vehicle has an ABS sensor, this method can help you diagnose a bad bearing. You’ll need to have an OBD scanning tool to plug into your car.
If you’re seeing warning lights come up on your vehicle after it’s been started, such as an ABS or traction control light, an OBD scanner can help you pull the codes to diagnose the problem. The instruction manual for your scanner will help you determine how to pull codes.
When you pull the codes, you’ll be able to determine the recommended repairs. If the code you pull recommends replacing a wheel bearing, you know that the bearing is bad. In more advanced versions, it will tell you which bearing needs replacement.
What to Do Next
If you’ve diagnosed a problem with your vehicle’s bearings, the next step would be to replace them, either yourself or at a shop. If the problem lies elsewhere, there’s lots of information available on how to take care of these issues as well, including Vehicle History‘s extensive series of articles.
