Q: Rear suspension component failure

asked by on January 20, 2017

It began with a failing wheel bearing about 5,000 miles ago. A few weeks ago, it started: a harsh grinding noise followed by a pop then a moment of nothing before the cycle repeated corespondent with forward speed of wheel (I'll refer to this later as the sound cycle). It lasted for only a few minutes because I stopped immediately to inspect. Without any alterations aside from wiggling a few things, I drove the vehicle home and the humming bearing failure noise began and progressed rapidly (around 20 miles to home). Lifted and pulled the hub. Inner bearing inner race was stuck to stub and bearing fell apart. Significant amounts of metal shavings present in the grease and middle metal part of bearing was almost entirely gone. Everything cleaned up and new bearings on, no problem for a few days. Yesterday, the sound cycle began again, but began as squeak that followed no pattern or cause (seemingly). Bushings look okay, bearings seem seated well. I do engine repairs so suspension got me

My car has 165000 miles.
My car has a manual transmission.

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That Year Cabrio might have drum brakes or disk brakes on the rear.I’m guessing that your car has drum brakes on the rear. If that’s the case, there may be something coming loose in the brakes that rolls around in the drum until it gets jammed in something. Another possibility is that you didn’t get the bearings pre-loaded correctly when you replaced them in which case there might be a lot of slop in the hub. If the hub shifts around while driving, the drum or the disk could be contacting some other component from time to time. You should play it safe and have this thing checked out by a professional. If you contact Your Mechanic, they can send a technician to your home or office to check out your rear wheel noise and recommend a fix.

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