Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums General Troubleshooting Wheel Bearing Diagnosis

those r the exact sypmtoms of what my car was doing last year. ended up having both of them replaced. 1 new bearing and 1 new housing. dealer said i had waited so long (the week and half it took me to get an appointment) and the bearing would not come out of the housing. just dont take it to colony ford in meriden, ct. they broke my tierod and cracked me rocker moldings while doing this repair.

My car had a bad wheel bearing over the summer... I ended up doing it myself. It was a pain, It cost me $75 to have the old bearing pressed out and the new one pressed in...

It took them like 2 or 3 hours using a hydraulic press to get the old bearing out of the hub. They only charged me for a little over an hour though.

But anyways, my car, when you turned the wheel to the right the sound would go away and to the left it would get worse. It was the passenger side.

Ray is right though, it could be the passenger side as well. It doesn't have to follow the common rule.

My 97 Contour seems to have delevloped a similar hum but when turing to the left. Of course it waits until it turns cold (Ohio) before doing this. Love a metal wrench in my hand on a cold day. So what bad can happen while I wait for a warm spell before tackling this problem?
Thanks.
PS, Will I need an alignment after this?
Minger

First off.. no.. you shouldn't need an alignement.. at least, not specifically from this repair. Follow the how-to under Duratec Maintenance's FAQ.

Prolonging this repair can cause the bearing to spin inside the hub itself, eating away at the hub's circular fitting (which the bearing is pressed in to) and causing the metal to be "shaved" away.. thus enlarging the hub's opening, and making a bearing NOT press fit tightly.. this will cause replacement bearings to fail INCREDIBLY fast.

Solution is to buy a new hub (comes with a bearing in it already! yay!) and replace the hub. SAME PROCEDURE AS REPLACING THE BEARING. The hub is still pulled to have the bearing pressed out..

Follow up

Got my car back yesterday with a new passenger side wheel bearing in place and the humming noise is gone. They charged me $140 to get it done. Well worth it, the noise that they make going down the highway is pretty irritating.