Twice now in the past two days I have heard a loud screeching sound coming from the center area of where my right front wheel is located. It will screech at any speed when I drove it arond but then randomly stop....The only thing three I-club people have told me that it could be was a screwed up bearing.

I realize this isn't a good thing and was wondering if anyone else had an idea of what it could be. Also, I drove it 25 miles total (mostly freeway) since the last continuous screeching it made and it's been fine.
Thank you for any help,
Brian

P.S. The urgent is due to the fact that I am driving home this weekend before D1 JGTC and will be home away from any good shops like LIC for quite some time, so Im trying to figure out if I need to get this fixed tomorrow.

 

It may also be the wear indicator on that brake. Does the noise get worse when you put load on that side (i.e. driving around a left hand corner or hard braking)? Usually if a wheel bearing is going on you the noise will intensify when additional load is applied. If you have never had your brakes done and you have 30k+ miles my money is on it being the brake wear indicator.

-Chris

 

could it be a belt?

a/c on when you hear this?
edgar,

 

what kind of car? i work for subaru out here in hawaii- and this past month i have had three service clients bring in their legacy(older models) with defective bearings. my service mgr. told me that soa knows about the bearing, but little is done about it. sad thing is its like 4-500 bucks to fix.
as far as other models i'm not sure though.







aloha from the summit of *-^-Mauna Kea-^-*

 

In my experiance:

1. Probably the brakes.
2. If it is a bearing - you will have real problems in 50ish miles or so - You need to get to a shop and have the bearings repacked.
3. It could be a belt - my AC belt used to screech like a banshee until it just wore away the edge of the belt.

 

Thanks for the answers guys:
Here's some info related to your questions:

It is an 02 M/T WRX

Edgar-Not a belt you nuthead as it's coming from in the wheel area (my belts squeek too but make a different noise

I tried to see if it was the brakes but I don't believe it is as it would ONLY make this noise when I go forward. I tested it when it first happened, and when I drove in reverse there was ZERO noise, but as soon as I drove forward it would make the noise again.

Dorifto88 and I, to possibly eliminate other factors, turned the car off and pushed it forward in neutral and the car still made the noise. When I drove it around the noise would vary between different types of noises reminiscent of the HORRIBLE sound associated with screeching, scraping metal......But then it just randomly decided to stop.

I hope this info helps, thank you so much for your replies

 

Believe it or not, but that will sometimes be the case with wear indicators. When the rotor is spinning in the foreward direction the wear indicator catches on the rotor better and creats a much louder noise. When the rotor rotates the other direction there is much less of a noise because it doesn't catch as well. Below is a really ghetto drawing of what the wear indicator looks like. When the rorot is spinning the direction of the arraow is when it makes the noise. the long flat piece is what attaches to the calliper.

-Chris

 

How much brake pad do you have left?

 

If this is the brake pad noise I'm never going to let Brian or Mike forget this...

 

I had the same thing, many people here and on nabisco said brakes, and it was the wheel bearing.

 

To our credit Christian, Mike did mention brake pads, but we didn't know about the wear indicator (or at least I did not and Mike didn't say anything)

MexicanPizza, Did your noise come and go like mine has been?

Now that I think of it, I have put about 16,000 miles on my car since I bought it used at 36,000 and the guy had JUST put new brake pads on before I bought it. I take it that it's time for new brake pads? I don't ever really brake harder than normal, though, and I have stock brakes. I admit I'm a newb in many things, and knowing when you're supposed to replace brake pads is one of them :/

 

I just got back from driving home about 4 miles from work and there was still no noise.
My confusion right now is: How could a bearing problem and a brake pad wear indicator sound alike? Shouldn't I be able to tell the problem from the sound and distinguish between the two?

 

Brian just look at the brake pad and see how much is left on there. If you want some moral support I can come look at it between 12:30 and 1:30.

Edit: those times are AM

 

i considered puttng up the wheel and taking **** apart, but its kind of hard to without a wheel lock key heh.

i still dont think its the brake cause my ride sounds like that. scratch that, used to sound like that, now it sounds worse =]

 

Ditto to the above. We were having some odd sounds coming from the front, a sort of rythmic whining sound, after making sharp (near full lock) turns. Then out of the blue we noticed this extremely loud whine while we were driving on the freeway which kinda freaked us out.

In the end we had our front-passenger wheel-bearing replaced under warrenty and it fixed the problems. Too bad the warrenty ran out right before the the front-driver side bearing started making noise (and the dealership had said it seemed fine when they looked at the other one).