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Worn Tire Belts or Front Bearing Problem?

Discussion in 'Gen 2 Prius Care, Maintenance and Troubleshooting' started by gondo, Jul 29, 2015.

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  1. ChapmanF

    ChapmanF Senior Member

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    When my right rear was going, I was able to catch it that way, turning the hub by hand.

    When my left front was going, it was only ever noisy under actual road conditions with the car's weight on it. It always acted perfectly sweet and innocent when jacked up. I even let it get worse for months figuring eventually it'd get bad enough to tell which one it was while jacked up. In the back of my head I was MacGyvering elaborate tests like letting the wheel down onto a set of rollers to spin it under load ... but the ChassisEar turned out to be a lot easier.

    The OP's buddy is a mechanic, though, so might conceivably have one.

    -Chap
     
    #21 ChapmanF, Aug 1, 2015
  2. ChapmanF

    ChapmanF Senior Member

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    Depends on the Prius generation. To keep things interesting, there are also bearing-industry "generations", not to be confused with Prius "generations".

    A single bearing unit that can serve as a hub, with two angular contact ball races facing each other in a single common outer race, is called a "hub bearing". A hub bearing that presses into a knuckle is a "generation 1 hub bearing", and a hub bearing that comes as its own whole bolt-on assembly is a "generation 3 hub bearing". (I don't know what happened to generation 2.)

    The first-generation Prius (like mine) has generation-3 hub bearings in back, generation-1 hub bearings in front. The second-generation Prius went to generation-3 hub bearings all around. I assume that's still the story for the third-gen Prius, though I haven't checked.

    On my Classic, the contrast is this: buying the front bearing costs under $40, but changing it is a long job. Buying the rear is over $200, but changing it is basically a four-bolt proposition, at least outside the rust belt. In the rust belt, it's four bolts and a long bout of persuasion.

    -Chap
     
    #22 ChapmanF, Aug 1, 2015
    JTM2955 likes this.
  3. JTM2955

    JTM2955 Active Member

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    Yes sir, I have had the pleasure of pressing out the old bearing in the rust belt. Heat and almost ten thousand pounds of force on an old Nissan from used cars. The bearing was totally done.

    LG G3 T-MOBILE phone ☎
     
    #23 JTM2955, Aug 1, 2015
  4. gondo

    gondo Junior Member

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    Hey guys,

    Sorry so late in following up, and thanks to all that replied to my initial post. It was indeed a bad front left (driver side) bearing/hub, I got 3 replacement estimates and went with a shop that was started by (and still employs) former Toyota dealer mechanics. They charged me just under $400 and installed my already-bought cabin filter free. Not sure I paid too much but felt better having Toyota-background mechanics do the work. So nice not having that bad sound while driving anymore!

    While enjoying that, I also noticed how firm the front suspension still is, even after almost 185K miles. Probably a combination of excellent components and fairly relaxed driving, I've owned the car a little over 2 years/25K miles and treat it pretty well, while the original owner was a young traveling sales rep. but I think he wasn't real hard on it either.

    I'm already looking for a Gen III as a replacement, I'm confident in this '07 and enjoy it but don't want to see 200K with it, despite all the success stories here - need to get something decent out of it to apply to the Gen III :). I'm a firm Prius believer now and ready to move up to the cool look and toys of Gen III, along with a non-bladder gas tank, thank you ;).
     
    #24 gondo, Aug 17, 2015
    Merkey likes this.
  5. cyclopathic

    cyclopathic Senior Member

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    We are up to 175k on Gen3. There not much residual value left in 200k car, you might as well keep it
     
    #25 cyclopathic, Aug 18, 2015
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