So my car is humming while driving. The faster I go the higher the pitch and loudness. It isn't dependent on RPMs as it stays the same when the car is put into neutral.

When I turn left the noise gets slightly louder. When I turn right it goes away. I had a friend drive so I could move around in the car and try to pinpoint the wheel it is coming from and it definitely sounds like the back. Stick my head into the trunk and it's loud! Stick my head between my legs underneath glove compartment and it's quiet.

I switched the two back tires as that would tell me if it was a tire or bearing issue and the noise stayed the same, loud on left turns quiet/non-existant on right turns.

So I thought easy, it HAS to be the rear passenger wheel bearing! I just finished changing it and the noise is still there!!!

Any ideas on what it could be? I'm thinking exhaust now. Do they get clogged? Never had this problem before.

Thanks for your help

 

Wheel bearing. Everything you explained sounds exactly like a bad wheel bearing.

 

That's why I am so confused.

Also, I changed the hub and bearing altogether as an assembly. No press fitting or any of that was done as the part I bought came pre-assembled.

The only thing I can think is to swap out the rear driver wheel bearing with the bearing that I took out. I mean if the noise is still there than that bearing was probably still good. Didn't appear to be bad. No grinding. Slightly noise than the new one I have, but it barley makes any noise.

 

Alright all fixed now. It was the rear driver side bearing. I used the bearing that I replaced on the passenger side to replace the bad bearing. I was able to do it fairly quickly though. About 1.5 hrs with some very tight/rusted bolts.

Everything I read said "turn right and noise goes away = bad passenger side bearing"
In my case it was the opposite. You can think of it as whichever way you turn and the noise goes away = the good bearings. Replace the other side.

I'm not sure that this method is very accurate to begin with, but this is just from my only bad wheel bearing experience. Or do what a lot of people do and replace both back or both front at same time.

The sucky part about my scenario is that my wheels didn't have any play, they didn't sound any different from each other when raised off ground and spun. It wasn't until I took off the wheel and brake calipers and spun it that I realized that this bearing was 100% bad.

I didn't have my power drill handy, but I wanted to raise the backside, pop the center pieces out of the rim and spin the wheels really fast with power drill to see if I could hear a grinding noise from either wheel indicating a bad wheel bearing. Maybe someone can try this and save time.

Hopefully this helps someone.

 

Good call SQualZ!