Rich, BB, Max, etc, I need serious help

[jeffcoslacker]

OK, you might remember my talking about this moaning/rumble in my front end before. I'll recap:

About 5 years ago, I began to be aware of a very slight moaning in the front end when moving. It seemed to be something a hub bearing would do, in that it was noticeable when going straight, gets more pronounced when leading left, and goes away when leading right. I decided to ignore it for the time being.

It has continued to increase in severity over the years, yet every time I have a look, I see nothing wrong...no bearing play, no cv shaft rumble when I roll them with the wheel cut, tie rods, ball joints, c-arm bushings all fine... HOWEVER...the last set of tires, the right front went literally BALD while the others were still at least 40% or so......I had gotten stuck really bad once in the snow and thought maybe I'd burnt it up some trying to chew my way out of it...

But the sound is increasing, the car "feels" strange to me...I can't really describe it, but it had me out there just now checking the subframe mounts, steering rack bolts, etc...all's fine...everything on this car is clean, intact, and leak-free...but here my right front tire is nearly shot again, and I just rotated it to the front about 10,000 miles ago, and it was nearly new then (these tires only have 16,000 miles on them)...the other three are fine...

This is driving me nuts...the steering wheel is just SLIGHTLY off-center...exhibits a very slight lead to one side (and I mean VERY slight)...the wear is perfectly centered, not along an edge like you'd see in toe or camber wear...no feathering or chunking whatsoever, just looks like a tire that came off a perfectly aligned vehicle that was used down to the hide, no distress to the tire, just worn out...

WTF am I dealing with here??!!

I can't rectify this with anything I've seen before, and it's really starting to bug me.

[maxwedge]

I have had wheel bearings do this and replaced them and the niose was gone, there were no external signs it was bad.I have also seen the bearings in the final drive sound like this also, less frequent though. I would get this on alignment machine and get a printout of all the readings including set back and thrust angle, of course go thru the usual suspension steering checks first. If possible post the readings, I don't know how familiar you are with analyzing the readings, but I can. Shep

[jeffcoslacker]

I rolled the dice and replaced the right front hub bearing and the sound is gone...still don't understand the connection to the tire wear (if there is any) but we'll see. Both started around the same time, but may be coincedence.

I'll bring the good one up to the front now, and watch what it does...

Thanks!

[maxwedge]

Good, This happened to me at least twice, still like to see a print out though. Shep