Follow-up Rusting Wheel Hub:

[edthefox5]

This is a follow-up to my post almost a year ago:

Self Tire Rotation Kinda Rusty

My 07 at 22K has developed a strange buzzing that only sounds when ICE is on and does not track rpm. Buzz goes away as soon as the engine speeds up. Its right behind the glove box low like the front of the engine.I took the glove box out and its chassis related.. Its not very loud either. I put the car in inspection test mode and tried to listen to the ICE as its running but the ICE is too loud. That little motor makes some strange sounds when its running.
Overall interior wise The car is really quiet no squeeks or rattles so I can plainly hear anything weird.Not having the time to take it to the dealer I put the front up on jackstands and got under there and found nothing loose.Its hard to interogate anything without taking that heavy steel pan off thats blocking everything right there. I didn't as it looks like alot of work when your laying on the ground. I pushed and pulled on everyhting including the tin heat shield. I can see where the exhaust manifold attaches to the main pipe it has bolts with big springs on it so it might be those bolts need to be tightened there but I could not reach it.

Anyway while I had the car up I pulled the fornt wheels to see how my anti-hub sticking grease job I did a year ago is doing. Its doing really well. It stoped the corrosion in its tracks and the grease did not get on anything else either as there's an excellent seal from wheel to hub surface. PLus you cabn esaliy see the hub area through the wheel holes while the tire is on the car. I used synthetic bearing grease. Mobil 1 Bearing grease. I have a bottle of the silver anti-seize stuff but the bearing grease is less messy and just evaporates and leaves a film of lubrication. It works really well. Please see previous link and new pics below. Here's one thing I discovered. While I was working on it my neighbor came by a guy who has been in the car biz for 50 years owned his own garage for a while and now works for a car auction. He says " Hey where's the wheel bearing dust cover"? I say there isn't one. He says your kidding! Never saw that before.He looks at the wheel and then the hub and says maybe the wheel center dress cap comes off and thats the dustcover. If so I'd fill that hole up with some grease as the castelnut is pretty corroded (from last year) moisture is getting past that dress cap .I found the center dress cap pushes right off with just a little push from the back. Pops right off. With the wheel on that whole area is sealed by wheel to hub contact. So I filled it up with grease and put the cap back on. Been like that for about 200 miles and so far no grease leak or any other issue. Thats the ticket I think to stop that bearing nut farea from corroding.Lots of galvanic action right there.

Weird thing is my buzz stopped too. Somehow the stress of it being on jackstands made the buzzing stop.

A very strange thing I found is if you start the car while the front wheels are off the ground and then shut the car off it shuts off in neutral. You can then freely spin both front wheels. Swear to god.
When I first put the car up the wheels were locked like I'd expect. I started the ICE to do some AC work. Shut it off when I finished my ac work and then found both FRONT wheels were free and able to freely spin which is handy. Very odd.

Sorry for some reason I cannot post pictures with my brand new Dell here. Just got it and tonight just loaded my Camera Viewing software. Some setting is wrong. Will post 'em tomorrow.

[dogfriend]

I just checked the runout on the front discs two days ago (part of 30k service). Since it has an open differential, you can turn one of the wheels (or hubs in my case) even when the transaxle is in P as long as both wheels are off the ground. When you turn one wheel the other wheel will turn the opposite direction.

[jayman]

Those of us who run steel wheels for the winter tires, have noticed there is little to no protection for the castle nut.

What I finally ended up doing was getting a thin, pliable polymer film stuff, cutting it to be alrge enough to cover the hub and studs, then when I put the steel wheel on, it covered and sealed the castle nut

A surprising number of new vehicles do NOT use any sort of dust cover to protect the castle nut. I guess they figure it probably saves 50 cents a car not putting them on