Well the test drive was a success. No more roar.

Congrats Crowz. The end result makes the bruising and sore muscles almost completely worth it.

Now, when the test drive goes badly... and you hear that poor bearing still making noise... LOL that's not good times. My brother in law had that happen to him on his 330ci because he had tapped the bearing in improperly and damaged it. HAHA, I still remember that string of expletives... very reminiscent of Chevy Chase near the end of National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. ;)

Wheel bearing job from hell.....
 

23 cusses ending with hallelujah holy shit; where's the Tylenol.

I have to replace the third bearing on wife's x5 I figure I'll do the 4th preemptively when I have a spare day. Always a gamble if the new one was a fluke or its a different one broken it is so hard to tell which. Always feels so good to feel the bump bump bump in the old bearing when you pull it out to confim you did the right one.

A great tip: if you can: change the wheel to a different width wheel. Borrow or use a spare: if you can get the force to flip from inside to outside or three opposite you can often nearly eliminate the vibration and confim which wheel.

When I changed my 255s to 245s one of my front bearings flips from leaning in to leaning out and instantly showed the hidden damage. I'm going to try that same test with wife's x5 to confim the left front is the bum bearing as opposed to the right (which is the one I replaced last year).

I caught myself almost pressing a bearing in on the wrong race. Outer race to put into the carrier, inner race to press on the hub. Do not want to put 10-15T of force sideways on the bearing itself

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

At this point I figured with the way my luck was going either I replaced the wrong bearing or who knows what else :)

But everything seems ok. That was the most tense test drive ever for the first trip up to the speed limit.

Just so happy it worked.

Amen !

The which way you turn making it quieter seems to be the best method for figuring out which one is bad. Heck the old one seemed ok when I went to remove it at least by turning it by hand.

The way I picked the one to change was that turning to the right made the noise stop. So I changed the right hand (passenger side) bearing.

I really couldn't tell which one it was just driving straight.

Works for the front wheel bearings. Not that great for testing the rear bearings.

I'm going to go ahead and order the other 3 bearings and put them up for when I either feel like changing them or when they start marking noise. I know it wont be to soon one way or the other. I'm finding just walking a major challenge today and in 2 days I get to redo the entire stereo system....

Getting old sucks.

The problem with the logic of right vs left turning is you don't know for sure if the load plane is inboard or outboard of the centerline of the bearing.

Take the right wheel for example: if the load centerline is right of the bearing center then the outer race of the bearing holds the weight and the inner bearing only keeps the wheel straight. A left turn will flip the job of the inner and outer race. If the outer race is the damaged one it will get quieter as the load is removed from the outer race even though the right wheel will have more force during a left turn. It's really frustrating to determine because of this.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

Should still be quieter on a hard turn when the weight is shifted off the bad bearing. So far its worked for me finding bad bearings. Of course I prefer to jack up the vehicle and spin the wheel after I narrow it down via the turning method.

Only problem with the X5 was neither bearing made noise hand turning. So luckily the driving and turning worked out otherwise I wouldn't of had anything to go on this time around.

Hopefully, you changed the shaft seals for the differential case when you pulled the cv joint off the differential case. The seal is pretty inexpensive and if you have the right tools it just adds 5 minutes to the job. If you didn't I would monitor any new fluid leaks that you may notice. A leaking differential will eventually leave you with a burnt or scored ring and pinion gears.

Nope didn't change it. If it leaks I'll replace it. So far its dry around shaft and that side of the case.

Had to revive this one.

Roars back.

Wife has this X5 now and daily drives it back and forth to work but I don't think that is what killed this bearing.

If anyone remembers the other thread I had with the wheel not coming off after I forced it on from the mushroomed hub I think that explains what caused this one to fail so fast.

That wheel was beat on for a few weeks by everyone that wanted a shot at trying to hammer the wheel off. A mechanic finally hammered it off the car.

I don't think the wheel bearing faired to wheel in all of the abuse.

Anyways Im sitting here trying to convince myself to do this all over again.....