GenVibe - Community for Pontiac Vibe Enthusiasts

I'm new and now to my question. My girlfriend has a 2003 Pontiac Vibe. Front wheel drive, automatic. She rear ended a trailer but had that fix over a year ago. It has slowly developed a very loud noise in the front of the car. At about 10mph it starts and gets much louder when she drives faster. It sounds like grinding bearings. It has a nice hum to it. Is it transmission bearings or wheel bearings. Please see my notes below.

1. Wheels do not move up and down or side to side when on jacks.
2. When the car is lifted off the ground and I drive the car the noise is still there but not as strong.
3. When I put the car in neutral at speed the sound does not change.
4. When I make a hard left turn the noise goes away. When I make a right turn the noise increases.

If it is transmission bearings can someone point me in the right direction, names, etc. As I have rebuilt transmissions before.

Thank You.

Rosalita:
I don't think there is enough information to exclude the wheel bearings as a cause. I've had a similar situation on a Ford Contour. The bearings on one side had dried up and started making noise but no play had yet developed. The noise was not constant but very notable at low speeds under braking. Two mechanics independently diagnosed the bad wheel bearing.
I suggest getting a mechanic's opinion.

Front left wheel bearing.

jayoldschool wrote:Front left wheel bearing.

If I'm doing it, i'll be sure to change that one first and make a test drive. Still excited to hear what the mechanic says tomorrow.

Hello All, I just want to post an update to this in case anyone else has additional ideas. I replaced the left wheel bearing and it sounds exactly the same, :/ So now I plan to replace the right wheel bearing. I'm hoping this will fix the issue but I won't be able to do that until next weekend so if anyone has any additional ideas, feel free to let me know as I like to think what I'll need to be doing in the future as I know not much can be said until I change the right one. Thanks

Being that you have already been under the car with it running, I will not go into the safety aspects of that but to just say that you can never be TO SAFE! Use jack stands, and blocks of wood, and old wheels, and tree logs, and ...... well you can never have to much stuff piled under a car so that it does not fall and crush you when you are under it. Another very big thing to watch out for is rotating shafts and other moving parts so that you do not get yourself wrapped around a shaft and tear an arm or leg off. Now on to other things.

You may want to invest in a stethoscope to find where the noise is coming from. Link to scopes and info; even sound files to hear.

https://www.amazon.com/Lisle-52500-Mech ... B0002SQYSM

http://www.ebay.com/sch/items/?_nkw=ste ... rmvSB=true

http://www.enduringautomotive.com/autom ... ethoscope/

With the car up in the air and wheels running, making noise, you can use the stethoscope to locate where the noise is the loudest and where that location is at. This will help locate the part that is in question. On the internet, I can not hear it so I am guessing from what you have said and the first thing I would have guessed is the drivers side front wheel bearing. Any clicking sounds? That could be a bad CV joint on the drivers side. I once had a noise on our mini van that I would describe like you have, and not being 100% sure, I changed both front wheel bearings and the noise was still there. After doing more digging I found that the bearing where the drivers side axle goes into the trans-axle case was bad. I could move the inner CV joint and axle up and down, it was loose. There was also some leakage of transmission fluid from the seal. The other axle shaft was nice and tight where it went into the trans-axle case. I left it as I was not going to fix it on a van that had 160,000 miles on it and rusted out. About 6 months later the van got totaled out in a wreak so the problem went away. One way or another, nothing lasts for ever.

Good luck to you!

Hello Everyone! YAY, Thanks for everyone's help. I got up real early this morning to get the right wheel bearing replaced. The original wheel bearing looked pretty good but that was the problem because after I got the new one installed and did a test drive the noise was gone. I thought for sure it wasn't the wheel bearings but it was.

jolt wrote:Being that you have already been under the car with it running, I will not go into the safety aspects of that but to just say that you can never be TO SAFE! Use jack stands, and blocks of wood, and old wheels, and tree logs, and ...... well you can never have to much stuff piled under a car so that it does not fall and crush you when you are under it. Another very big thing to watch out for is rotating shafts and other moving parts so that you do not get yourself wrapped around a shaft and tear an arm or leg off. Now on to other things.

You may want to invest in a stethoscope to find where the noise is coming from. Link to scopes and info; even sound files to hear.

https://www.amazon.com/Lisle-52500-Mech ... B0002SQYSM

http://www.ebay.com/sch/items/?_nkw=ste ... rmvSB=true

http://www.enduringautomotive.com/autom ... ethoscope/

With the car up in the air and wheels running, making noise, you can use the stethoscope to locate where the noise is the loudest and where that location is at. This will help locate the part that is in question. On the internet, I can not hear it so I am guessing from what you have said and the first thing I would have guessed is the drivers side front wheel bearing. Any clicking sounds? That could be a bad CV joint on the drivers side. I once had a noise on our mini van that I would describe like you have, and not being 100% sure, I changed both front wheel bearings and the noise was still there. After doing more digging I found that the bearing where the drivers side axle goes into the trans-axle case was bad. I could move the inner CV joint and axle up and down, it was loose. There was also some leakage of transmission fluid from the seal. The other axle shaft was nice and tight where it went into the trans-axle case. I left it as I was not going to fix it on a van that had 160,000 miles on it and rusted out. About 6 months later the van got totaled out in a wreak so the problem went away. One way or another, nothing lasts for ever.

Good luck to you!

Jolt, thank you for your help and adding additional information when I wasn't sure about what was going on.

And again thanks to everyone. I will note real quick for the record that the noise was coming from the center of the car, very loud bearing grinding type noise at about 40mph was when it was at its worst. And I replaced both left and right wheel bearings and the issue was fixed. This post can now be closed.

Rosalita wrote: This post can now be closed.

Congrats on getting the problems fixed Although you likely will not post anything more here on this topic, it will stay open forever !!! This will benefit others who may have a similar problem into the future and could come across the steps you described as they solve their problems. Thanks