jridge086

i bought my suburban back in jan with 200,000+ on it. i shortly after moved across the country. i started hearing a faint bearing noise on day 2. by the time i made it to arizona the noise was very prominate. i replaced both front wheel bearing just to have it not fix the problem. took it to a shop and found out i needed a new front dif. got the truck back and the noise was back to being faint. here it is 2 months later and the noise is getting louder again. i noticed today that when i turn left the noise seems to go away. when i turn right it seems to get worse. what is the possibility that i now need to replace the rear wheel bearings?

tech2

I have seen bad wheel bearings right out of the box....especially cheap line parts. sure sounds like 1 has gone bad.


take it back to whoever did it....the part should be warrantied.

jridge086

I did them myself. It sounds like it's coming from the rear. I jacked it up and spun the tires and I was getting more than brake drag.

jridge086

So i just jack up the rear end, one tire at a time, and found some stuff. The left was very tight and difficult to turn. there was minimal noise. While i had the right side up i was getting a squeal in the transmission and transfer case on my 02 chevy z71 suburban. is there a way for me to isolate where it is coming from, or would it be better to just replace both?

tech2

professionals would jack up the vehicle with jack stands so the drive wheels are off the grd. have someone run the vehicle up to 50mph max and listen with a mechanics stethoscope at the areas you thinks the sound is coming from.

KChevy75

If you got 200,000 miles out of the differential bearings, you are lucky. I had to replace the outer pinion race and bearing in my suburban when it only have about 60,000 miles. They were all pitted and were no name made in china. The pinion was still good and tight though. It was pretty loud inside. While I had it apart, I replaced all the bearings and races in the differential along with the axle bearings. All the other bearings were well known name brand and had no pitting but some did have damage from the metal pieces from the pinion bearing.
Stay away from the axle saver bearings as they'll require you have the axles turned on the inside to remove the rounded lip. If you don't, they'll leak. Nobody listed the correct bearings, only axle savers and I couldn't find the part number anywhere. The axle bearings were next to impossible to remove and were all broken so I had to piece one together to get the part number.
My wife has put 145,000 miles on the suburban since and all is nice and quiet still.