Ok, So I am pretty sure that this is a wheel bearing problem. Normal howling in the corner, slight vibration in the wheel, blah, blah. My question is this, how can a check for this, jack the car up and check top to bottom play? My bloody luck is that I think that it is not just one side but both fronts. These are not just bearings are they, the whole hub has to be replaced doesn't it?

Second, maybe its not what I think it is, could one or two bad ball joints throw my front end out of alignment bad enough to cause a fair amount of road noise?

I would apperciate any suggestions. The car is a '97 TSI, and I only have 61,000 kms on it.

I just had my rear driver side wheel bearing/hub assembly replaced yesterday at the dealer. Parts alone came out to about $300. Basically it was wear/tear and thought i'd get is looked after on the tire rotation.

I started noticing a hollow-wind noise coming from the rear area a few months and it just got steadily louder as time went on. Within the past 3weeks i starting hearing a slight rasping sound. This is more apparent at highway speeds.

My ride is a '95 Talon ESI w/110k .. another friend has a '96 Talon ESI w/105k and he had the same problem.

Hope that helps a bit...

Well, just for fun the front hub is $214CAD from Satan and $107USD from Tall Mits. Looks like about the same price too me once you get it up here including shipping and the sh!t across the border. +- a couple bucks.
Question still reamains.... is that the prob. I hate getting parts that I do not need!

Sean Markham is the right person to answer this question. I think he replaced just the bearing somehow.

Sean?

Jeff Mitchell

I'd love to help as well, but I believe the front bearings were different between some years. My '92 manual showed 'bearing' fronts, and my '90 bearings were actually just plastic rings with ball-bearings pushed into them... (:

If you jack up the front, grab the bottom of the wheel and yank in and out a few times as hard as you can. If it clunks, and you can feel some play, it's your ball joints. Otherwise, I'd have to hear it to know for sure...

I haven't had it up in the air yet to check for play, but when she is on the ground and I grab from the top and yank it just doesn't seem to feel right. I am headed out of town for the weekend, and I will prob put her up on my buddies hoist down home to see what the hell is going on.
The dealer replaced one of the ball joints on the passenger side last Oct. for inspection when I bought the car. Might be the other side now. I will let ya know what I find out.
Thanks for the help all.
A.

Ok guys now I am kinda pissed that I have to spend almost $500 on two front wheel bearings. Yes, that is not a type-o, two. I have a 97 AWD with 61,000km and two howling front wheel bearings. You should see the &*%%$^& play on the drivers side. I swear that it must move almost a half inch top to bottom.
OK, so here is the question, has anyone done this before? I know that the bearings are a sealed unit from Satan, but are they pressed into the "spindle" (for use of a better word). I had most of it apart yesterday, but stopped when my rotor didn't want to come off easily, didn't feel like fighting it, so without the new parts I just put it back together.
If anyone has any info or knows where there is a FAQ on this topic, I would appreciate any help you can give. I still can't believe that they are both bad, I don't think that I have ever heard of two going at the same time. And with hardly any miles on the car..... I guess that I should know better. Mitsu can't seem to make any good bearings!
A.

Well, I have had problems with wheel bearing in my car too. I have replaced the rear twice(first one was bad right from the get go but I it did by them from M&S recycling in cali.) They were 110 us for the rear one and as far as I know you have to buy the hub that the bearings come in. If you find a place that sells just the bearings let me know I think my others ones are on there way out too!

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95 Talon TSI AWD
Sean Markham

That's not a warranty issue? I'd be severely pissed at them for sure...

Well, some direct help is available locally if you want it. Just drop me an email. As for the bearing setup, I'm not sure for the 2G, or even the 1G anymore. When I took mine apart before (a long time ago now) it looked to us like the bearing race is made right into the spindle assembly. The tech manual says this as well, but shows an 'exploded' picture of a full bearing being pressed in.

All we ended up doing was buying a bunch of the correct-sized ball bearings, reinserting them into the plastic 'rings' that hold them, cleaning everything up, reinstalling and regreasing. (:

I did some reading and went through my tech manual. The front bearings are pressed into the hub assembly. That is going to make things interesting.....

Thanks for the offer Troy, I appreciate that. I think that I will end up going back down to the Valley so that I can use one of my buddies bays next weekend. I just don't have the room to work on my baby up here, parking is tight. As for warranty, I picked her up used last fall and the manufacturing warranties had already expired. I do think that I am going to write the buggers a note and whine for a while though. Prob won't do any good but maybe I can piss someone off.
A.

So I am thinking to myself last night, how am I going to come up with the cash for this. DUH!! I forgot that a buddy of mine started working at a local Chrystler dealer. I dropped himm a line and asked if he could check into getting me a better price then the one that I had been quoted. Low and behold he calls me back this morning, np, tells me he can get them for $141.00 +tax. Yippie I say, order them up! That's $73.00 less per side for a whopping total of $146.00 I save before tax.

We actually have a contact at Courtesy Chrysler as well. (: Even so, I just order all of my parts through Conicelli. You usually save even more than the dealer's local costs...

Troy, thats the same dealership that my buddy works at..... interesting. Where's Conicelli? I always like to cut corners, especially when something breaks. I sometimes pay more than I should for stuff that I want, but when it comes to things that break, well, that's a different story.

While you seem to be following this post, I have been meaning to ask if you, or anyone else in the area knows who own's a dark green 1g. 92-94 body style, FMIC, and personalized plates. Just curious?

I guess I'm playing Devil's advocate here... If you search this board on my post from March titled "95 AWD Front Axles" you'll find out why it cost me about $2000 to do my 95 AWD front wheel bearings.

The way they press them on from the factory doesn't leave much chance of getting them off the axles (in one piece).

If you need more info on how I did it, drop me a line...



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John Hately
johnh@canada.com

The guy we know is (I think) Geoff Day.

Conicelli is out of the mid-Eastern US. Sometimes they're hard to contact, but pretty good when you get them. The main parts guy there, Josh, knows his DSM's. They ship across the border as 'warranty replacement', and their prices are awesome. www.partz-net.com.

I can't remember what colour Bob Brown's car is (I thought it was Black, but it's probably dirty (: ), but his is the only one that I know locally that fits that description. I've seen no other ones with FMIC's, anyway.

Well, if that is Bob Brown then he is the one that blasted me on the 101 between Sackville and Bedford a while back. I saw him coming off the ramp, and saw the FMIC and said oh sh!t, this guy is going to want to play. I wound her out but didn't have enough, went by me at around 180kph like I was standing still.

Thanks John, I will take a look for your post, and drop a line if I have anymore questions.
A.

Well, just fire him off a message. He's on here once in awhile. (:

Call Adam Clay, he is in Whitby he is giving awesome deals on stock parts a REAL bargain, his contact info is on the advertisements section.

Replace the darned things, and if the noise doesn't go away, back to the drawing board I guess..

**** LONG POST ****

Hi Sean and Adrian (Info about my 2Gen wheel bearing problems last month)

I have a 95 TSi AWD with 106K on it. The car was maintained by the dealership for its original owner and he provided me all the receipts to prove it. The car was driven every winter on Ontario roads (salt!).

I started noticing a slight vibration in the steering wheel one day in March. Within 4-5 days the vibration had got considerably worse. I took it to my friend with a hoist and we found that you could shake both front wheels. The front wheel bearings went, and they went quickly!

The bearings come in an assembly with the front spindles and were about $215 CDN, which was no big problem for me. My friend tried to get the spindles off to see how bad they were, and that was when we realized they were seized to the axles. On the 2Gen’s the axles come complete with the CV joints and all. We actually broke a large puller trying to get one side off. The end result, it took the cutting torches to get the spindles off the axles, which then allowed the now shot axles to be removed.

Turns out that Chrysler had made an engineering boo-boo and pressed the spindles on to the axles without enough of clearance. The lack of clearance, along with time and road salt, and oxidization had the two parts literally welded together…

I started with Chrysler Canada and found they wanted about $625 per axle, however, it would be three weeks delivery for the RH side. I then checked many, and I mean many after market places throughout Canada and mostly the states. No luck getting the correct ones. I had entertained the idea off taking the seized components off the car to a machine shop, once again; they won’t come off the car until they’re separated…

I ended up contacting Shawn at Tallahassee Mitsu and he got me the axles in 48 hrs, to my door here in Canada, for $247 USD ($388 CDN) and the shipping was only $45 USD (overnight via Airborne Express, then Purolator on the CDN side).

What you have to be aware of is these points:
1. LH side and RH side are different axles
2. Cars with ABS have the gears to drive the ABS sensors
3. 5 speed and auto have a different length RH side axle

This was a nightmare that almost had me selling my TSi, but I didn’t and I’m grateful that I didn’t. I don’t know if the answer is to remove the spindles every 50K and re-assemble with anti-seize compound, but I’m sure it wouldn’t hurt. I have re-assembled most of my front end with anti-seize. Maybe it will be easier next time…

Hope this helps,



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John Hately
johnh@canada.com

Thanks for the info John, that sounds like you had quite a time with that.

I had the drivers side apart last weekend as I said above. That side was not seized, and it was the one with the most play. I know this because we had the axle out of the hub assemble.

I got the parts today, $325 taxes in. I just have to make it till Friday and then they are going in. Cross your fingers.
A.

Man, that is not good news.
I was hoping for a a cheaper way out.
Thanks for the info though!

Later

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95 Talon TSI AWD
Sean Markham

John, it will. I first disassembled my '90s axles years ago, and the dealer showed me a press putting 40 *tons*/sq. in. on the axle/spindle hub. It didn't *budge*. It did when they heated it with this pressure, though. (:

I reassembled with anti-seize, and every time since the axles just *fall* out of the spindle hubs. (:

Well, I am back from my mechanics course! That was a bit of a bitch, those hubs were really seized in steering knuckle, and they took a lot of force to get out.
Had to unhook both lower ball joints, and tie rod end to swing the hub around enough to get a good swing on it with a hammer. Drivers side came out half easy, after beating on it with a slide hammer for 30 minutes before we figured out that that wasnn't going to work. That was when we started un hooking the suspension to try one last thing, which low and behold finally worked. Passenger side hub came apart in numerous pieces bearings and stuff were falling out of it.
I guess that the old motto holds true...... get a bigger hammer.
Amazing difference in the handleing of the car.... she sits on the road again instead of wandering all over the place.
I also managed to do both the FCU bypass and the restrictor removal. I have a totally different clutch now.... one that actually grabs and releases like it is supposed too. All in all it was a very productive weekend, and I could not have asked for better weather. Thanks to all that made suggestions and offered assistence.
Cheers
A.