Ok guys, need a little help.

When off-road and in a turn (but not necessarily while moving the wheel) under some load such as a slight uphill or other torque-needed scenario, I hear a "clank" sound seemingly from either of the wheel wells. I don't particularly feel it in the wheel. There is also a slight shimmy when I'm on the highway that I'd just chalked up to the big MT/Rs.

Bearings??? How much do those typically cost to R&R?

2005, 113,000 miles. Bearings never replaced.

Also: In ordinary driving, it does make an extra heavy sound when turning, but only with the (heavier) 32" MT/Rs on. Not the stock sized tires.

 

A new wheel bearing is about $250 for the part if I recall correctly and you can do the labor yourself. I'd definitely make sure that's your problem first though. There are plenty of youtube videos explaining how to check your wheel bearings, but the short of it is that you just need to jack each wheel up and (with the tire on is fine) see if you have any play on the wheels when you try to move them. Make sure you try to move each wheel side to side (i.e. move the front of the wheel in and out) as well as up and down (move the top of the wheel in and out). If you just do the former and not the latter, you can misdiagnose some bad tie rod ends as failed wheel bearings.

I would assume that if the bearings were actually the culprit of the "clank", they would be pretty bad off to allow that sort of movement. Usually, you will start to hear a sort of roaring noise at highway speed first. Almost like a really noisy tire. There is a pretty good video made by British Atlantic IIR that shows the entire procedure for replacing a wheel bearing as a DIY.

 

Houm_WA,

Responded to you on another forum as well, but for some reason my post had to be "approved by the moderator" and it's taking forever, so I'll respond here as well. Just wanted to let you know that the symptoms you are describing in your post sound to me like they may be caused by a bad/broken stabilizer bar or links or perhaps worn stabilizer bar bushings. Either of these could make a "clunking" sounds when cornering or when you have articulation in the suspension, but would not be reflected in the feel of the steering (other than the car might not feel as planted going around a corner at speed). I would go out and check your front stabilizer bar and links to make sure they have not broken and then take a look at the bushings as well to see if there is any excessive movement. Might even consider replacing the bushings just in case.

 

Thanks for the response, cmb. I'm intimately familiar with the sound of worn sway-bar bushings....this is different. So I took it to the service dept today and they looked it up and down, chassis ears, the whole nine. The left front bearing was pretty shot, and they think this is the culprit even though the "clank" noise is not typical of worn wheel bearings. It only happens in 4-Lo, generally Rock Crawl when lots of torque is being applied and with steering input. So it could be a corner-case bearing loading scenario.

....curious that there is no wobble in my steering though; not with my stock tires anyway. There was with my MT/Rs.