Hi all, not the best at troubleshooting so would like some assistance before I just start throwing parts at a problem.
My '05 Chevy Malibu, rear left wheel moves a little if with hands at 12 and 6 you rock it up and down.
Won't move if hands at 3 and 9, will move if E-brake is on.
Had wife rock it up and down to see if it could be a bushing that has died, car does have 160k miles and has done 200+ laps at VIR. Couldn't tell as the amount you need to push causes other things to shake and the play is minimal at this point. Hard to tell the difference if play vs shake.
Figured it was the bearing and in this car the whole hub assembly would need to be replaced. Checked hub bolts and they were snug. Pulled wheel and made sure all mounting surfaces were smooth and put wheel back on, didn't fix. Didn't know if I could have missed something easy. Alignment worked itself loose in the front after one track day, could it be something like that in the back? I know nothing about how an alignment is even adjusted to check if that's the problem.
Any assistance in troubleshooting would be appreciated.
F!
those bearings are junk with less miles & no spirited driving.
Movement in one direction but not the other and movement with the E-brake set makes me think it's in the bushings. I would guess the upper ones.
The easiest way to tell if it's a bearing and not bushing is release the ebrake and shake the wheel hard while looking at the gap between the rotor and caliper. If it's the wheel bearing, the rotor will move relative to the caliper. If it's anything else, the caliper will move too. You may need to pry the outer pad back a little bit to create a gap so you can watch the clearance there to see any movement.
If it's the wheel bearing, don't replace it with anything but OEM. AC Delco parts might be identical to the OEM stuff, but make sure to compare. The aftermarket stuff can fail catastrophically and dangerously at the track. Timken, SKF, etc do not make the parts the same way and they often skimp on flange radius, spindle thickness, etc. They can be fine on the street but NOT on a car that sees any track use (even a few laps).
GMs seem especially picky about bearings. My Malibu never sees track time and I've had aftermarket bearings go in as little as 30,000 miles. The current set of GM bearings have about 120,000 and still feel tight.
Bad bearings will have a cyclic growl like a bad tire.
Moog hub assemblies are made by Iljen, who makes most OE assemblies. ACDelco usually isn't the same as OEM; they're called OES, and often from a different manufacturer. Not sure on hub assemblies, though.
The longest I've had an aftermarket last is about 70'000. I tried a number of them before going back and buying them at the dealer.
bentwrench wrote:
Bad bearings will have a cyclic growl like a bad tire.
And the noise will change when you go around corners.
Plus, a bearing gets noisy long before there is any play.
In reply to series8217:
Timken, SKF, Federal mogul (moog), and NSK are all suppliers to the OEMs for bearings.
It was the bearing.
Benefit of having four cars in a two driver house is putting off repairs.
