Odd Tire Noise.....Told I Need new Tires. SOLVED! (wheel bearings)

[MetroMPG]

Glad you got it sorted out, and at a decent price.

THANKS for reporting back with the solution, too. Often people start a thread about a problem, then we never hear how it was solved.

[FlaAveo5]

glad to hear it was a decent price. How people on here do it themselves at home is beyond me!!! I was told it has an odd shape and you need a special tool to get them off. Even Chevy said it is hard to get off and back on, thats why it is SO expensive. I guess these people have this special tool or know what to rent? But considering I was maybe a month away from loosing my front wheels, I guess $499 was a bargain But I keep thinking that it is like 1 car payment,if I bought a new car. so they lasted 9.5 years, I assume that is a long time? But when I saw those bearing in pieces,and they told me it was a few hundred miles away from flying off the car, or worse, I guess it was a 'deal'. Now it is more quite than when I bought it NEW!

[petrified.rabbit]

To answer a few of your comments, pressed bearing in the front are common. Some manufacturers still use bolt in assemblies for bearings, but those are pressed together too. Taking them apart does involve a lot more tear down on the front than the back on the aveo. The rear is so cheap because its practically included in the drum replacement, so you would most likely be paying only for parts.

I've done it both on the "side of the road" so to speak and in a shop setting, you basically do the same procedure with different tools. You can use a "clamping" force to push and pull the bearings in and out instead of a press. That is the big difference for the road side repair.

I think with my ride height and such my front bearings failed at 45k miles. But I have hear people stating 60k and such as well. I guess it goes with the road quality as well. Its good you go them done, I don't know how you could install a seat of tires and move the rim around and not catch bad bearings.. it would allow a whole different type of wobble.

[lOOkatme]

I am doing the fronts right now. I am just taking a break. I did the drivers side....easy as hell. The passenger side the axle is stuck and I need to use a hub puller. so round 2 soon. I also gummed up some threads on the axle so I purchased a die to fix that (they were damaged when I had the nut on the axle hitting it with a hammer (I purchased a M20 x 1.5 thread pitch).

everything has gone smooth on the front but the passenger side axle coming out.

My car sounded really bad....like a monster truck going down the road. I will be doing the rear wheel bearings next week.

125K miles out of mine. I am also redoing the whole brakes on them now. still some meat left on the OEM brake pads. I purchased the Napa drilled rotors for cheap, and duralast gold brake pads for $7/set. haha

I purchased new knuckles, new hub, new nut/washer/C-clip. I purchased the hub assembly screw set up and it works like a charm.

I would also install rear poly bushings as well.

[lOOkatme]

Alright, the passenger side half shaft got stuck to my hub, I just purchased a new half shaft and already had a new knuckle, hub/bearing etc. I replaced the whole thing.

The hub puller worked like a trick in the rear, I removed the C-clips on my one piece drums, and I had to bring my bearings to a press. it was a large press that got them out, many many tons.

I got all new stuff put in, put in new napa cheap rotors and new duramax gold brake pads (DG1035).

I bled all 4 brakes really good and ensured new fluid was in there. I also re-greased all of my slider pins in my brake calipers, one of them needed it poorly.

Took the car out for a drive, ZERO noise from the bearings, so refreshing. the brakes I hit pretty good and they are insanely good, very surprised for the money I spent on the rotors and brake pads ($13 for the rotors and $7 for the pads).

I also like my whiteline poly bushings as the steering is crisp, no new outside tire wear like my newer rubber bushings. Moral of the story is to get the poly bushings to hold the lower control arm in place and not allow it to flex the toe out or in.

Hopefully this post helps people in the future. removing the half shaft was cake, and also installing it, I had never done one before, took all of 30 seconds to remove and 1-2 minutes to install.