Sierra/Silverado Mechanical Question

[hanson]

My trip home from 'up north' was rudely interrupted last night when a fierce grinding noise put my trip on hold in Alexandria.

My truck is a 99 GMC Sierra Z71 ext cab 4x4 5.3l (new body style) with about 150,000 miles.

I was cruising along about 75mph when I heard a wah-wah-wah-wah-wah type of noise coming from my left front end. I thought I was about to blow a tire so I popped the 4 ways on and took the shoulder while slowing down. I noticed I was about 1/2 mile from an exit so I crawled the vehicle to the exit and up the ramp. When I slowed down, the wah-wah-wah-wah-wah noise slowed as well but I could immediately tell it was a metal on metal grinding/squeeling noise now.

I got out and checked the tire, it was not hot or bulging or anything that would indicate the tire was in bad shape. I proceeded to drive about a block to really figure out what the noise was. It was definitely a metal to metal grinding and thought immediately it could be a bearing.

I was only about 2 miles outside of Alexandria so I slowly drove the vehicle into town on HWY 27 and headed towards the Fleet Farm where I thought their automotive department may know who would be open to fix a vehicle on a Sunday night. Yeah right! The kid I talked with was the most rude and inconsiderate person I've ever ran into. All he cared about was punching the clock and going home. I don't blame him but all I was looking for was advice on an auto repair shop in a town I don't know.

Realizing that not much can be done on a Sunday night at 8pm, I crashed in a hotel and phoned the GM/Chevy dealer this morning. They thought it may be the bearing as well and told me to bring it in at 8am. By 9:30am, I was back on the rode again! Big thanks to the service dept at Steinbringer Chev, the guy in service I talked to happened to be a big FM reader as well (he saw the stickers on my truck).

So my real question is this-

In the last 2 months, I've replaced an axle seal at the differential on the front/left axle, and now the wheel bearing/hub assembly on the same axle. Is this just coincidence or an indicator that something else is wrong on the front/left corner?

Anyone have any thoughts?

I know its hard to speculate about mechanic work online but maybe someone with a better knowledge of these vehicles has seen this pattern before.

[Wishin2BFishin]

Common problem. Older 4x4 trucks had hubs you could manual lock or they had auto locking ones. The front axle only got any wear when you were in four wheel drive. New trucks the hubs are always locked and the stub axles (CV joints) and wheel bearings wear out. My guess is with 150K miles you will shortly need the right side replaced as well.

Best of luck...

[Valv]

Don't feel bad Hanson, I had same issue with my Dodge 3500 last winter. Traveling north of Fargo at 70mph towing a boat the whole left wheel comes off, it stays somehow attached to truck by the brake calipers....thank godness nobody was behind or ahead of me, I took all 2 lanes + emergency and part of median before stopping the truck. I had 198,000 miles. 2 weeks after replacing whole bearing assembly (at $ 400 ) the other side does same thing, thank godness I was stopping at an intersection in Glendo, and dropped wheel right there.

I replaced bearing assemblies to my Superduty twice (235,000miles) once on my DMax (178,000miles) and now once on the Dodge.

They are not good forever, and they don't get sold in pieces, you have to buy the whole assembly which they are ALL around $ 400.

Check the other side and heve it replaced before it goes too...it ain't funny !!!

Another lesson I learned NOT to buy remanufactured steering gear boxes....I went through 3 of them in 10,000 miles before finally get a good used one from junkyard (yes a used one is better than a new reman...)

[hanson]

I'm not at all surprised these bearing/hub assemblies need replacing but it sure p*ssed me off the other night. Just bad timing.

I'm pretty thankful though, considering what may have happened. I was able to get off the road safely and get it repaired, although slightly inconvenienced.

On the drive back to the cities, I was paranoid beyond belief about something else happening and thinking to myself that the right side hub is probably going to get fixed pretty quick as well.

[BLACKJACK]

Been there, done that!!!! In early June I had a front wheel bearing go out on my 2004 Silverado while on the way back from Red Lake. Ended up getting a tow from Lake George to Park Rapids, the wife came and got me, then had to go back two days later to get the truck. Worst part was that on the way up the ABS light came on, I pulled into a Chevy dealer at Long Prairie, he said it was ok to drive, check it when I get home. Well I didn't get home. Only 24,000 miles on the truck, it was covered under warrenty, but isn't that why you buy new vehicles, so you don't have those problems on long trips!!!!

[hanson]

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Worst part was that on the way up the ABS light came on, I pulled into a Chevy dealer at Long Prairie, he said it was ok to drive, check it when I get home.

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Hmmm... Funny thing is, my ABS Light came on about 15 miles outside of Crookston. I made it to Alexandria before it fell apart.

I didn't realize that the ABS warning light maybe an indicator for that type of thing. I drove around for months with my ABS light on about 3 years ago. In that case, it was the ABS that definitely did not work and the dealer ended up putting a new ABS computer in the truck. Having that previous experience with an ABS light that really told me nothing was wrong, I thought nothing of it this time.

[Valv]

If you look at the hub from underneath the vehicle you'll see a teethed (sp?) wheel, that's your ABS sender, the pickup is a small sensor on top of hub, the clearance is very minimal, when bearing goes bad, it moves the wheel away from sensor and you get an ABS light on....few seconds before whole wheel comes off.

We really have to thank our "guardian angel" it could have been in a 2 way small highway or in other dangerous places.

[Macgyver55]

Many of the newer vehicles have the ABS sensor integrated with the hub and bearing assembly. That explains why when the bearing goes bad, the correct clearance between the tone wheel and sensor is lost and causes the light to come on. When the bearing first starts to fail you should have heard a faint "growling or humming" sound. Many times people miss it because it comes on slowly and becomes part of the usual sound of the vehicle. When I get into an unfamiliar vehicle it sounds very obvious to me. Last fall when leaving on a 500 mile round trip we were heading down the road from my house and I asked my buddy what that horrible sound was? He said he thought is was "just the tires". I told him to go back to my house and let me check it out quickly. Needless to say it saved us a big headache and we ended up taking my truck.

A quick check to my parts guy says a hub and bearing assembly for a 99 Chev is under 200 bucks (my cost) and takes less than an hour to install. Hope they didn't nick you too bad.....

[hanson]

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Hope they didn't nick you too bad.....

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Considering the circumstances, I don't think I got it "too bad."

Part was $312 & labor $117, add tax and 'stuff' on to that and I was heading down the road.

I called the dealership at 7:30am from my hotel room, they were working on it by 8:00am, and I was on the highway by 9:20am. They looked pretty busy and managed to "squeeze" my emergency from an out-of-towner into their early morning schedule.

I'm thankful they had the parts on hand and I was able to get my vehicle back almost ASAP.

[Macgyver55]

Nope... sounds like you did pretty good under the circumstances, especially since they got you going so quickly.

[Fishin4Life]

An hour and 20 minute turn around. Dang you did do pretty well on the deal!

[Gus]

Glad to hear you are back on the road. Big kudos to the dealer for getting you in and out quickly.

By the way, what did that axle seal on the front diff cost you? Mine is leaking on my 03 silverado.

[Jeremy airjer W]

Hey Hanson Who replaced the axle seal? The drive axle has to be removed from the axle (obviously) and the knuckle/wheel bearing hub assembly. Granted you have a few rounds on the chev but there is a posibility that maybe the axle nut was not properly torqued? The axle stub and the axle nut are the only thing that hold the bearing together. If you havent been hearing a persistant howling noise starting at about 40 MPH than that bearing has quickly deteriated. The possibility exists that the repair was done correctly and everything was torqued and the bearing failed do to the fact that the front end was taken apart and put back together.

I see quite a few vehicles with sloppy wheel bearings and brand new drive axles. almost everytime the axlenuts are loose!! The worst are the older caravans. An incorrectly torqued nut will take out a bearing before the vehicle makes it out of the stall. The most forgiving is the toyota camry. I have had several with sloppy bearings discovered during alignment prechecks (most of them came from a body shop we do alignments for that "speciallize in toyotas" personally I think they have a lot of "special" peaople working there but thats a whole different topic). Torque them back to spec and there good to go. No more bearing play and no noise.

Coincidence - maybe

vehicle age and the act of repairing the seal - likely

Human error - possibility