The hub is the main link between the car body and the road through the wheel, and it is she who experiences the greatest loads, both in motion and at rest.

At the same time, not only the driving and speed characteristics of the car, but also safety depend on the serviceability of the hub.

Causes of wheel hub failure

If you do not repair or replace the failed hub in time, then it is likely you could get into a serious accident. - either due to wheel jamming at speed, or due to separation of the disk from the shaft.

Besides, defective hub gets very hot , and thus has a negative impact on the normal operation of the brake system of the wheel.

The hub never fails at the same time , if there was no strong blow from driving at speed into a pit, curb or bump. It is destroyed gradually, and usually its malfunction is accompanied by an unpleasant sound, vibration of the body, sensations of rolling and weak jolts.

The main causes of wheel hub failures are:

• Rough driving on rough roads.
• Car overload.
• Repeated falling under the "belly" into the mud slurry or sand.
• Aggressive driving with sudden braking and acceleration, the so-called "drifting".

Depending on the above, the hub housing may be deformed, the outer or inner rim of the bearing may split, the lubricant may “dry”, as a result of sand, moisture and dirt getting inside the rotating parts.

Very rarely, rollers or bearing balls are destroyed. , the causes of breakdowns of which, rather, depend not on the quality of the ride, but on factory defects.

All these faults at the initial stage it is very difficult and almost impossible to determine without special diagnostic equipment until a large wheel play is detected, or a characteristic sound appears, reminiscent of the rumble of an aircraft, and sometimes accompanied by a crunch and rattle.

How to identify a faulty wheel hub?

1. The easiest and most reliable way to identify a broken hub is to foot tapping on tires . If any of the tires staggers, there is excessive play, then the hub is probably out of order. Moreover, the backlash can be found long before the appearance of extraneous sounds that are not audible at low speeds, or are similar to the noise of the tread on asphalt.
2. Another way to determine that a hub needs replacement is − aurally, but this is possible only when the wear of the hub - or rather, the ball bearings in them - has reached a critical point, and the operation of the car has already become dangerous.
   • Front wheel hub failure , thanks to the steering system, it is quite easy to determine. To do this, you need to accelerate to a speed when the rumble begins to appear (usually 40-60 km / h and above), and wiggle a little. If the sound increases when turning to the right, then the left bearing “flew off”, if vice versa, then the right one ().
   • Determine the faulty hub on the rear wheels a little more difficult. It happens that it buzzes on one side, and the breakdown, in fact, turns out to be on the other. Therefore, in order to accurately identify a failed part, it is necessary to raise the stern of the machine. Then, on weight, rotate and shake the wheel in one direction and the other. If you feel play and vibration of the wheel, and sometimes crackles and crunches are heard, then the hub is out of order.
3. Finally, the third recommended method. Without certain skills and the appropriate tools, replacing the hub on your own will not work. At the slightest suspicion of extraneous sounds coming from the area of ​​​​a wheel, or the detection of play, immediately contact a specialized car service .

Those car owners who, taking care of their "iron horse", try to regularly diagnose its various components and parts, often ask themselves: how to determine the malfunction of a wheel bearing? It was to him that it was decided to dedicate today's article.

Signs of a failing wheel bearing.

I would like to immediately warn all those who hope to read the universal wheel bearing diagnostic instructions - you will not find it here, or rather you will find it, but not in the form in which you wanted.

The fact is that the main way to determine a faulty bearing is while driving by ear, therefore, it is quite possible that you yourself, without suspecting it, have long diagnosed the named node.

Doubt? Then remember how your car has been behaving lately on the road: have you been alarmed by anything? Were there any strange body vibrations? Was there some kind of incomprehensible rumble (or crunch) heard - another, not the same, then the rubber emits when moving, but louder and more unpleasant, somewhat reminiscent of the sound of an airplane taking off. Have you noticed anything like this? So, most likely, everything is in order with the wheel bearings in your car. But let's not rush to conclusions, let's check everything again.

1. Choose a road that is free from traffic.
2. Accelerate the car on it to 40-60 km per hour.
3. Now, as if drawing a snake with the trajectory of your movement, alternately turn the steering wheel left and right - slightly, an amplitude of 20 degrees will be enough.
4. Listen for an unusual hum that accompanies you. If it accompanies, note when it intensifies, when turning right or left. In the first case, the left front bearing will be faulty, in the latter, the right front bearing.

How to determine the malfunction of the wheel bearing with your own hands?

At service stations for diagnosing wheel bearings, there are special devices that, through vibration monitoring, easily diagnose the condition and degree of wear of bearings.

However, not every one of us pays money for the fact that his wheel is simply fairly spun and shaken. We can do it ourselves.

1. Lightly jack up the car so that the wheel being checked, and preferably two at once (front or rear), are in limbo.
2. With one hand, take the wheel at the extreme top point, with the other - at the extreme bottom.
3. Now try to alternately tilt these points towards you and away from you. With a faulty wheel bearing, you will be good at this - a "healthy" bearing will not allow this.
4. If we are talking not just about the wheels, but about the front drive wheels, then they are checked not only for vertical deviation, but also for horizontal. To do this, the hands are moved to the extreme side points and alternately move their hands - towards themselves and away from themselves. The resulting noise is most often a sign of a faulty bearing, although it is quite possible that the problem is not in it, but in the steering rack.

Video.

This part is a special connecting mechanism, it is located between the axle and the hub. A disk with a tire is attached to the latter. Such a part is made of two rings, and conical elements are inserted between them, insulated with a rubber part. This element is classified as rolling bearings. The wheel bearing resource is quite large and averages 150 thousand kilometers. The part can not be changed for 5 years.

How to understand that the wheel bearing is defective? In such a case, an unpleasant and very low-frequency rumble is added to the standard tire noise while driving. In addition to the constant hum while driving, a wheel bearing failure may be accompanied by the following “symptoms”:

1. The car pulls to the side - this is due to the fact that the faulty part seems to stop. As a result, the car pulls to the right or to the left, as if there was a camber failure.
2. With a worn bearing, vibration usually appears, while driving it gives off to the steering wheel and to the body. This is one of the clear signs of a bad wheel bearing. It is important to replace this element as soon as possible, as the clip is very worn out, and a “wedge” is about to occur.

Another of the signs of a rolling bearing failure is a kind of crunch when the car is moving. This happens due to the fact that the clip has almost completely collapsed and the spherical elements are located incorrectly. It is easy to recognize such a crunch, it is well audible in the cabin.

Why is a bad bearing dangerous?

If you ignore the hum that appears, which is characteristic of a wheel bearing failure, then it will intensify. As a result, it will be noticed not only by the driver, but also by all passengers. An unpleasant noise when a wheel bearing fails is not the main problem.

Much worse, if no action is taken, the element may jam. As a result, the axle shaft is completely deformed, and the ball joint of the lever instantly fails. It is especially dangerous when such a breakdown occurs when driving at high speed, for example, outside the city.

Why can a bearing fail?

Such elements have a long service life and break quite rarely. However, every motorist still faces a similar problem. The most common root cause of wheel bearing failure is driving on bad roads. The bad condition of the roads always entails serious consequences for the car. That is why the load on the entire suspension is significantly increased.

Another cause of failure is improperly pressed bearings.

If it does not stand correctly, for example, obliquely, then it will wear out pretty quickly. Enough of it no more than 2 - 3 thousand kilometers.

How to check for wheel bearing failure

The very first sign that the front wheel bearing is faulty will be a very low-frequency and very unpleasant rumble, which gradually only grows. And yet, how to check the front wheel bearing? For the most detailed definition, it is possible to adopt the following method, which uses left and right turns.

1. When turning to the left, the car begins to roll to the right. In the same case, the greatest load will go to the right wheel, the entire load is removed from the left.
2. When driving a car at a speed of 10 to 15 km per hour, due to a very sharp turn of the steering wheel to the left, the extraneous hum completely subsides. This means that there are problems with the wheel bearing of the left wheel. If the noise goes away when turning only to the right, then the right wheel bearing is broken.

To make the diagnosis most correct, you will need to raise the car with a jack or a lift (if any). After the engine of the car accelerates to 4 gears. The speed should reach 70 - 80 km per hour with the help of a car jack. It is required to start the engine, disperse the car, squeeze the clutch, and then disengage the gear. Next, you need to leave the cabin, and then accurately determine the source of the noise by ear. When the wheel is fully up, you need to take it in your hands along the upper and lower parts, starting to swing it in a vertical position.

The presence of even a small backlash - in this case, we can talk about the identified failure of the wheel bearing.

In exactly the same way, you can see the presence of play when the wheel is rocking also in a horizontal plane. There is another option how to check the wheel bearings:

1. First you need to put the car on a flat surface. For this purpose, the most even asphalt surface will ideally go.
2. First of all, a check is made for the backlash of the vertical axis. To do this, you need to take the wheel at the top point and try to swing it strongly.
3. If clicks are heard, then we can already talk about the presence of hub play.
4. To be completely sure that there is a bearing failure, you need to raise the wheel using a jack and begin to rotate it quickly by hand. If there is a crunch, it's time to go to the service station.

Everyone is well aware that the rotation on the drive wheels is carried out by transferring the torque from the engine through the gearbox. And what ensures the smoothness, uniformity and stability of the rotation of the wheel around its axis? This is a wheel bearing. It is this detail that allows the wheel to rotate at the desired speed, smoothly and without deviations or slowdowns.

Accordingly, if the wheel bearing wears out, the rotation of the wheel becomes uneven. This is dangerous in itself. But such an epic ends, unless of course the bearing was replaced in time, in general, by wheel jamming. Well, what is fraught with a sharp stop of one of the wheels at speed, I think, everyone will imagine. All this is said only so that at the first sign of wear on the hub, you immediately change it.

So, in this article we will consider the main signs of a wheel bearing failure, as well as the reasons leading to its premature wear.

Wheel bearing inside the hub

In principle, if we are talking about really high-quality wheel bearings, then they are made from materials that can withstand just crazy loads. Thanks to this, the hubs go for 120 or more thousand kilometers. But sometimes, this period is reduced and, moreover, significantly. We list the main reasons for reducing the service life of a wheel bearing:

• frequent hits of the wheel in the pits at high speed;
• loss of lubricant;
• incorrect tightening when replacing;
• pressing curve when replacing;

And so, if the car gets into a hole with a wheel, and even at high speed, the wheel bearings, like the entire suspension itself, experience huge loads, not to say overloads. And if this happens often, hubs can die prematurely. Careful driving significantly extends the life of many and very different parts of the car, including the wheel bearing.

If the protective anthers are damaged, then grease flows out of the inside of the bearing and the bearing dies. Therefore, when replacing the hub, you need to make sure that the protective elements are installed correctly and are not damaged during the installation process.

As for improper tightening, this is a reason that belongs to the competence of specialists who replace wheel bearings. If you tighten the bearing too much, it can overheat, which negatively affects its life.

Well, distortions when pressing the wheel bearing lead to the fact that the loads that the bearing perceives are distributed unevenly. And this leads to uneven wear.

It should be noted that the last two factors that reduce the life of a wheel bearing relate to the work of the mechanics who make the replacement. Therefore, trust such work, like your favorite car in general, only to reliable and proven professionals. Moreover, if you drive the car carefully, and do not check it for strength rigidly and regularly, you will not have to replace wheel bearings often.

Symptoms of a failing wheel bearing

The first sign indicating a malfunction of the wheel bearing is such a characteristic sound. This is a distinct crunch, knock or rattle in the wheel area. You will hear it both in the car and outside when the car passes by.

Another sign of a wheel bearing malfunction is vibration, which is transmitted to both the steering wheel and the entire car. Therefore, skipping this symptom is also unlikely to succeed.

If the car pulls to the first or left side, this can also be the result of problems with the wheel bearing. The bottom line is that when one wheel is wedged, rectilinear movement, alas, is impossible. In such cases, it is necessary to change the bearing, without delay.

How to identify a wheel bearing failure

In principle, the symptoms of wheel bearing wear themselves are quite eloquent and allow us to assume the source of the problem with high accuracy. However, you can check the condition of the bearing, almost one hundred percent. To do this, you need to jack up the car, put props under it, and then shake the wheel in a vertical plane. If you feel play, the hub bearing needs to be changed. You can also rotate the wheel and if the bearing is out of order, you will hear specific noises or feel uneven rotation.

If, while the car is moving, the wheels emit not only tire noise, but also a monotonous low-frequency hum, this is a sure sign that the wheel bearing will soon fail and it needs to be replaced as soon as possible.

What can cause complete failure of the wheel bearing

If you do not pay attention to the hum that has appeared in the wheel area, and do not take any measures to eliminate it, then in addition to discomfort from an unpleasant sound, there may be other, more unpleasant consequences. Ignoring this malfunction in the future can lead to jamming of the wheel bearing. As a result, the axle shaft will be deformed, the ball joint and the suspension arm will be destroyed. In the event that the bearing jams at high speed, then a serious accident will be very difficult to avoid.

Bearing buzzing: how is it? Video

Why does a wheel bearing fail?

The hub bearing, like similar ones (rolling bearings), are highly reliable and durable in the most difficult conditions. However, despite the stated, rather long service life of the wheel bearing by the manufacturer, they run within 100 thousand km. run.
One of the main reasons for the failure of a car hub bearing is the terrible condition of our roads. This leads to critical loads on the suspension of the car, and, in particular, on the wheel bearing itself. Plus, let's add the natural wear of parts, insufficient sealing and an unsatisfactory amount of lubricant.

How to find a humming wheel bearing. Video

Car wheel bearing check

As you know, a failed wheel bearing produces a monotonous low frequency hum while driving, which is more pronounced when turning right or left while the vehicle is moving at least 20 km. hour.

When the car's front wheels turn, the body rolls in the opposite direction from the direction of the turn and the load on the wheel under the roll increases.