Noise from back wheel
 

Long time no post!

There is a noise coming from the passenger rear wheel of my car. It's only there after I've driven the car for awhile and things warm up. It sounds like rubber rubbing against plastic, it's not metallic sounding at all. I thought it was the CV joints since all four boots are torn; I replaced both complete axles and the exact same noise is still there.

Could this be the wheel bearing? I can't imagine what would make this weird noise, the noise is patterned with the rotation of the wheel. Any suggestions to diagnose this more? TIA!

Scott

Wheel bearing

Yes, most likely wheel bearing.

Hey Scott.... welcome back to the madness........

Three years ago I got what sounds like the same noise you're getting. I could hear it when I hit about 30 MPH. And, at the time my Boxster only had 21,000 miles on it. The bearings are not that expensive. At the time I paid under $60 each for the two rears from Sunset Porsche. The labor cost is a tab expensive. I looked at all the threads on DIY and convinced myself that my Indy should do this for me.

Here are 63 threads on the subject for your reading pleasure;

986 Forum - for Porsche Boxster Owners and Others - Search Results

Agreed - very likely wheel bearing.
They are a common failure item for this model. Not necessarily a unique problem for Porsche, however, as the same one is used for certain models of BMW and Mercedes, which may explain why the part itself is not expensive.:)
Someone noted that the same part was used on the 914, with tires half as wide and a whole lot less stress on the bearing...
The bearing size was increased in later models to account for this.
My first one failed after 95K miles; maybe I'm not stressing the bearings enough:rolleyes:
This can be accomplished as a DIY, but I don't recommend it unless you are already a pretty decent mechanic with all the tools. The juice ain't worth the squeeze.
The good news is you can likely drive it without much immediate danger. If you are like most of us, you will decide you can't stand the noise long before your bearing fully implodes.

Scott, if you replaced the axles yourself you should have noticed that the wheel hub was somewhat loose on that side after the axle shaft came out of it. Could it just be the dust shield or something in the E brake?

Thanks for the replies- I need to take the car for a ~350 mile journey in less than 48 hours so I ended up taking this to my local mechanic. This will be the first repair I haven't done myself :/ Don't have the time necessary nor the press. $700-800 for the single wheel out the door parts/labor. I feel like less of a man now!! (:

Deadeye-
I didn't notice the hub was loose, the job did go well into the night and the side in question was my second side, so I was moving much quicker in the work. I can't say that I really examined the hub much. The noise is similar to what Chuck W is describing, where it's not present at all times, only once things warm up. I believe it's just beginning to fail, if it were related to the ebrake I'd expect it present at all times. Thanks for the suggestions though.

Best way to check out your bearings is as follows:

Put the back end of the car up on jack stands and chock the front wheels.
Grab tires at 12 and 6 and see if there's play.
Grab tires at 9 and 3 and see if there's play.

If you don't feel any play, try spinning the wheels with the motor out of gear and in neutral.

My bearings were just barely going out and the only way to hear the noise was for me to get in and start the motor and put it in gear and spin the wheels up to 30 mph and then cut the motor so my tech could listen to the spinning wheels up close...

Just as an update the bearing was totally shot- according to the mechanic the original bearing had failed in the past and damaged the hub, a new bearing was replaced in the damaged hub and that caused this second bearing to prematurely fail. He was able to order a new hub and still meet my deadline of noon today, awesome! Hub, bearing, labor out the door is $925.

That's a VERY good price! Good for you!

Common occurance is the hub is damaged when the old bearing is pressed out or when the new one is pressed in. Heat and cold are your friends in this operation.