Rear passenger wheel knocking....

...occurs at slow speeds (5-15mph). 2003 Explorer, AWD, 8 cyclinder. I think its the bearing or cv joint. If you think it's the bearing, is it easier to just replace the whole wheel hub assembly, rather than having to set the new bearings? Does my explorer even have rear cv joints? Any advice is appreciated.

Welcome to the forum!

I would consider it pretty unusual for a bearing to make noise at such slow speeds and not make noise at higher speeds. "Knocking" is a pretty broad description to attempt to diagnose over the Internet. Can you provide a bit more information? Does it vary with vehicle speed? What happens if you carefully shift in to neutral while the vehicle is rolling, is the noise still present? Is it only present when going straight, or does it get worse on turns?

Yes, your 2003 will have halfshafts with CV joints at each wheel.

-Rod

best way to check is to do a visual of the suspension/ driveline components of that affected area...

some shops may do this for free if you're scared to lift it, take off the wheel and actually do the visual...

I tried to re-create the knocking today so I could give a better description, but of course now that I want it to happen...it won't. I don't get it, maybe something is just loose. I posted on another forum and two people immediately said "its your wheel bearing". They seemed pretty confident so that why I thought it was a bearing. I was set to replace my wheel hub assembly this weekend...maybe I should just have it looked at first.