bearing, joint, or tire

[thstone]

Check the wheel bearing by lifting that corner of the car and pulling on the tire/wheel from top to bottom and from side to side. There shouldn't be any play. Then rotate the wheel while lifted and listen/feel for noise/vibrations from the bearing. A bad bearing will usually sound rough or feel like there is some grinding or skipping from smooth to rough.

Check the tires by swapping the rear tires from side to side. Does this change where the noise comes from? If it moves to the other side, then its the tire.

If the bearing and the tires check out ok, then the last place to check are the inner/outer CV joints. They can be hard to diagnose but if its not the bearing or tires, then you're left with the CV's.

[Ghostrider 310]

Does the noise speed up and slow down in tandem with acceleration and deceleration?

[oc-boxster]

Originally Posted by Ghostrider 310

Does the noise speed up and slow down in tandem with acceleration and deceleration?

yes it does, and i can hear it start at a pretty low speed, and is constant even wiht the car in neutral coasting.

[Frodo]

Originally Posted by thstone

Check the wheel bearing by lifting that corner of the car and pulling on the tire/wheel from top to bottom and from side to side. There shouldn't be any play. Then rotate the wheel while lifted and listen/feel for noise/vibrations from the bearing. A bad bearing will usually sound rough or feel like there is some grinding or skipping from smooth to rough.

Check the tires by swapping the rear tires from side to side. Does this change where the noise comes from? If it moves to the other side, then its the tire.

If the bearing and the tires check out ok, then the last place to check are the inner/outer CV joints. They can be hard to diagnose but if its not the bearing or tires, then you're left with the CV's.

Good advice, though in my case (passenger front) my wheel passed all the tests in the first paragraph---I could not demonstrate any unusual sounds, feel or movement when the car was stationary and jacked up. I did try switching wheel/tire between the fronts, and the sound stayed on the right side. I ended up going on the fact that the sound varied with the speed of the car, worsened as I took the car through a curve, AND there was nothing visibly wrong under there. With a rear wheel, I'm not sure if you get that change in sound as you take the car into a curve or not.

Anyway, I eliminated everything else as well as I could, then dove into changing the bearing. I didn't know for sure that my diagnosis was right until I finished the job and took it for a test drive, fingers crossed. I'd have been one frustrated SOB had the offending noise persisted...but it didn't.