24y 17,403 Aug 4, 2010 #4 If a wheel bearing is starting to fail, you replace it immediately. (Your wheel can fall off.) Symptoms are squeak/squawk noises, perhaps a slight wander in the steering.

What Does It Mean? If your noise is a wheel bearing, you'll likely hear that whuh-whuh-whuh noise from the beginning of this blog.

Telltale Signs of a Bad Wheel Bearing Noise is the most obvious indicator of a bad wheel bearing. Sometimes it announces itself with a howling or grinding sound that increases steadily with speed.

A. This will be tough to diagnose without driving the car, but your accurate description of the symptoms provides a great start. My hunch is this is tire or wheel bearing noise. Let's start with a ...

What causes wheel bearing noise? The metal inside the bearing can wear down and start to fail, usually making a noise when it does so.

The replaced the bearing and most of the noise went away (they took it on the highway to test). Apparently the fronts will need to be replaced soon as there was a little noise coming from them.