So for the last 6 months, a strange sound has been coming from my front right wheel area. It was faint at first and is now rather noticeable. From my searches here, it would appear to be a possible bearing failure. Its a whump-whump-whump kinda sound that increases its frequency as the speeds increase. Also, when I take a left curve or a right curve the intensity or volume of the sound increases whereas driving straight, the sound is most faint. At first I thought it was my tires. I mentioned it to a suspension specialist who was doing my alignment and he thought it was because my front tires were feathered and the noise was coming from the tread. But after I switched to my stock wheels for winter, I continued to hear it. I thought that maybe both sets of tires were feathered which is possible since they both have been in service for a few years. But when I got my new winter tires on the stock rims recently, the noise is still here. From the driver's seat, I sense little to no vibration in the car nor the steering wheel so the tires are not out of balance. In fact when I have the stereo up, I almost forget I have this problem cause I don't feel anything out of norm. The sound happens pretty much all the time, whether the car is cold or warm.

I had the dealer investigate it last time I took it into service and they claim they listened to the bearing with a stethoscope and the bearing was quiet and appeared normal. They thought it was an issue with the braking system. So I went to the brake shop where they installed my aftermarket parts and they said the brakes were normal and it was the bearings. They also tugged on the wheel but there was very little play and was tight so far as they could tell. Now, I do sense a vibration when I apply the brakes and sometimes, the pulse seem to be in time with the sound which does lead me to think its the brakes too. I have slotted rotors so I thought maybe if the pads were just skimming the rotors it could make a sound. But we surmised that if the pads were making contact then it would smoke and be very hot after a drive. I checked after a 25 minute commute home from work and sensed nor smelt anything usual. Also if its brake related why the sound would change as the car turned one way or the other since the rotors wouldn't make more contact with the pads as you turned.

The sound is starting to bother me a lot and I hate it when I know my car has something wrong with it and just isn't running as perfect as possible. The sound makes the car feel cheap and noisy. If anyone has experienced something like this before. Please let me know. I'm getting desperate and about to buy a wheel bearing assembly and swap out the bearing in hopes of fixing this but its a lot of work and money if I'm wrong.

 

First of all, yes I'm being a lazy dick and not reading your whole post because I'm tired and its late.

Secondly, I'm 99.999999% sure that you have a problem with your wheel bearing. SAME EXACT problem I have had for the last 35,000 miles.

Yep, thought it was my tires and drove on a bad bearing for that long. Sucked *** and was embarrassing as hell to have people be in ~$40k car and ask why the car sounded like it was riding on unevenly worn lifted truck 40" dirt tires. All I can say is thank god the bearing didn't completely fail at highway speeds, that could've been ugly.

Very recently it began to get worse and I suddenly realized "Hey, maybe its a wheel bearing!". Low and behold, I jacked up each tire and gave them a shake and the front right wheel has a crap load of play (enough to hit the rotor against the brake caliper both if I press it upward and downward). I had always thought that nose was coming from the front right too.

If you haven't already, jack your car up and wiggle your wheel to see if there is any unusual play. If so, your bearing is bad. The fronts cost about $150 shipped from Riverside Infiniti (new hub w/bearing) and the rears need to have the bearing purchased separately and pressed onto your hub. If you are reusing your old hub you will of course have to remove the old one before your bearing can be pressed.

Good luck, I'm looking forward to fixing mine as well.

 

In addition to the above post. You grab the top and bottom of the wheel, not the sides; then push and pull on the top and the bottom. If there is movement it is most likely the bearings.

 

I bought my wife a 2005 G35X and it has the same exact problem you mentioned. If the radio is on you almost forget it is there, little to no vibration is felt in the steering wheel maybe a little felt in the floor, and the sound amplifies on what I would call aggressive right/left hand turns. I have had my car at the dealer twice for this issue to have them look it over since it was still under factory warranty (was). They replaced bushings in the lower control arm and also replaced both front wheel bearings. Nothing changed. I bought new tires when I got the car and an alignment after the dealer did the front suspension work. My front tires have very slight feathering but I can not believe that this is the source of the noise. Regardless, I am going in the next couple of days to have the tires rotated and balanced since Discount Tire will do it for free since I bought the tires there.

 

Thanks for clarifying that, it was late and I couldn't think of how to explain that in writing, lol.

 

I had the tires rotated and balanced today and as expected the noise is still there. When just driving normal, driving around town I really do not notice it. It really is most noticeable around 65-75 MPH when I am on the interstate. It really is not that bad, it is also my wife's car and it does not seem to bother her (she barely notices it) so I guess I will just leave it alone unless it starts to get worse. It has been the same now for about 5,500 miles.

 

Well those cases all point towards the bearing. The noise isn't so horrible but I'm concerned I might be wearing out my tire strangely or the brakes if I don't fix it. Also I just got some new rims and when I get them on, I know it will bug me that my car is great except for this one annoying bug. I guess I'll have to jack it up and do some more checking. Maybe compare it with the left side front wheel that has no issues. Thanks.

 

What people don't understand about changing their wheels is that the suspension must also be modified. If you don't modify it, you suspension will prematurely wear and performance will be greatly reduced. Buy hey, at least you look cool!

 

i put up with the bad bearings in my 05 for 8 months or so because i wasnt sure if it was the tires or bearings.. but once I replaced the tires, i could tell the problem was definitely the bearings.. plus the humming sound turned to vibration as time went on.

Dealer replaced both in the front, among a bunch of suspension parts that were squeaking and stuff.

 

How much did they charge for the bearing replacement? It's too cold out for me to do it myself!

 

It's been almost 2 years since I first noticed a strange whirring noise from the car's front end. Going back and forth between it being a brake issue or a bearing issue. I finally tried it all. I had my rotor machined, tried new wheels and tires, but nothing made the noise go away. I finally bit the bullet and bought a set of front hubs from an online dealer - I think it was infinitiparts.com. Installation was done by my friend who is a home mechanic. I was thinking about doing it myself as the DIY seemed pretty straight forward but was too lazy to do the hard labor of removing those hard to reach bolts that are torqued to 90 lbs. I used this DIY:

http://x.infinitihelp.com/forum/show...73.html?t=8773

The job went pretty smoothly and once we did one side, other only took about 20 mins. Your dealer should not charge more than 1 hr for this job if we did it under an hour without any air tools. We followed the DIY and didn't dismantle the steering knuckle which partially blocks one of the bolts.

The good news is the noise is gone! One of the bearings was definitely bad and now my car seems to coast much better. I was probably losing gas mileage and it was probably was the cause of the rotors warping prematurely.