I took my 98 Escort in today to the shop after noticing a clicking sound that seemed to be coming from somewhere under the drivers side front tire, and a nasty front end wobble. The sound comes and goes but mostly seems to be noticable at speeds over 50MPH and when turning to the right. The wobble also gets worse at higher speeds. First thought was CV joint, but I was wrong. CV Joint is good, tie rods good, they couldnt find anything wrong with it. I'm thinking possibly wheel bearings or brakes. Any ideas or suggestions here would be appreciated. Thanks :)

Just another note I forgot to add. The brakes have always been noisy with this vehicle, whether they're squealing or whatnot, they're always noisy. I'm feeling a little bit better about having to drive it since they found nothing wrong but I know theres a problem somewhere so I'm still a bit nervous.

Any idea what the shop did to check it?
Did they take the wheel off to inspect the brakes? Did the look at the bearings?
How do you know the CV is good?

SImply taking that wheel apart should identify your problem pretty quickly.

Any idea what the shop did to check it?
Did they take the wheel off to inspect the brakes? Did the look at the bearings?
How do you know the CV is good?

SImply taking that wheel apart should identify your problem pretty quickly.

Well the wheel was taken off, twice actually. The cv joint was inspected by three different people, checked the boots and all that, no cracks, no leakage, no tears or anything. I'm not positive if they checked the bearings or not, I called back shortly afterwards when it occured to me that it could be the bearings and they had changed shifts so no one there knew for sure. I did however take it elsewhere today, and asked them to check out the bearings for me, and they are insistant that it's the hub bearings. Apparently its just at the beginning stages of going bad, and the guy said I should make a goal to get it taken care of before winter and that if it were to start going real bad on me, I would have plenty of notice on it, apparently hub bearings give plenty of warning signs before just crapping out. Planning on getting it taken care of next week. Was hoping it was something simple like a ball joint, or tie rod or something I could do myself but oh well, at least I know what the problem is now.

Any noise or roughness upon turning the wheel or movement back and forth would indicate the wheel bearings. They are pressed into the hub and you can't lubricate or adjust them. Sealed units they are. It's a good job to do them. The hub has to be taken off and the bearings have to be pressed into the hub. To take off the hub you must take off the drive shaft nut, brake caliper, disconnect the bottom of the shock strut, take loose the tie rod end and take loose the ball joint. Then the hub assembly can be slid off the drive shaft. It is suggested they be replaced in pairs if one is bad, but I don't agree with that.

Any noise or roughness upon turning the wheel or movement back and forth would indicate the wheel bearings. They are pressed into the hub and you can't lubricate or adjust them. Sealed units they are. It's a good job to do them. The hub has to be taken off and the bearings have to be pressed into the hub. To take off the hub you must take off the drive shaft nut, brake caliper, disconnect the bottom of the shock strut, take loose the tie rod end and take loose the ball joint. Then the hub assembly can be slid off the drive shaft. It is suggested they be replaced in pairs if one is bad, but I don't agree with that.

Yeah, its being taken care of next week. He also suggested that the clicking I had for a while (that has now become more of a grinding) may have been the result of a bad cv joint that had been re booted earlier on. I was also thinking it may have been the caliper as well. I was thinking of lubing the pins and seeing if that may have been it, rather than swapping out the joint, but then again, it may run into more work later, so I'll probably just swap it out at the same time.

Oh and to add insult to injury, the blower motor died on me as well. Ohhhh well. At least thats not a major deal, this is the second escort I've had, and second blower motor that crapped out.