Questioni bought my Mazda about 11 months ago and after taking it in to have the mechanic investigate a noisy engine, I was told it was unroadworthy as the wheel bearings had almost gone? Is this normal for a new car -they are suggesting it is?
Thanks in advance
AnswerNo, wheel bearings are not prone to failure. Most Mazdas see well into 150,000 plus miles without wheel bearing issues. The exceptions being trauma from an impact (pot hole/crash) or driving through flood water.
Noise from a bad wheel bearing and noise from a bad tire can be similar.
While driving in a straight line lightly oscillate the steering wheel from left to right. What you are doing is loading and unloading the wheel bearings and tires on both sides of the vehicle.
Listen for your noise. It will get louder or more pronounced as you load it down with the vehicles weight. Obviously if you steer left and the noise is heard then the bearing or tire in question is on the right, the side getting loaded down or vice versa.
By doing this you can determine the fault to some degree. Once you are sure what side it is on try to determine by sound whether it is front or back. A little harder to do, if you hear it more as you apply the brakes from speed then it likely is up front, as you brake you transfer weight forward. Once you have that down rotate the tires front to back and see if the noise moves front to back. In this test you are making sure it is an actual wheel bearing and not a tire. Having a passenger to help listen for the noise might help. Try it windows up and everything off, then windows down.
Check your tires for nails, cuts and any irregularities. Suspect any tire that has had a recent flat or being patched or plugged.
Bearings are man made and they can fail, though it is in an extremely small number of cases that they do so on new vehicles.
