Play in rear wheel hub?

[T3hD0gg]

I did a rear brake job a while ago and when I finished up and went for a drive, the rear, passenger side brake would "grab" when I would brake. It was as if it wasn't running true or it had low and high spots on the rotor. Well, I checked the runout on the rotor and measured a difference of over 0.007" on the rotor. I didn't think it could be the rotor since it was brand new, so I took it off and checked the hub. The hub had runout of about 0.004" on the outer edge and it was very gradual going from 0.000" to 0.004" on the runout indicator.

So ever since then I've been driving on it and finally today I decided to take it all apart again. While I did this I tried playing with the hub to see if it was sitting in tight... It wasn't. Whenever I move the hub up and down, it will actually move a bit but if I move it left and right, it won't. I even rotated it and it still did it the same way. I then went over to the rear, driver-side and raised it up and took the wheel off and the hub didn't move at all, so that led me to think something is wrong.

Would this mean something is damaged in my wheel bearing or wheel bearing housing? How would I go about checking this?

[B5A4Kevin]

try lifting the rear off the ground, and turning the right rear wheel assembly slowly with one hand. with the other hand, hold firmly onto a coil of the right rear spring, or other suspension components (lower control arm, sway bar). if your other hand feels any vibration, grinding sensation, or harshness being transmitted through the suspension, most likely your wheel bearing is failing. it will also make a sound similar to a jet engine which increases in volume and pitch as vehicle speed increases. from what you describe, i would recommend replacing the wheel bearing, and not the housing. hope this helps.

[T3hD0gg]

try lifting the rear off the ground, and turning the right rear wheel assembly slowly with one hand. with the other hand, hold firmly onto a coil of the right rear spring, or other suspension components (lower control arm, sway bar). if your other hand feels any vibration, grinding sensation, or harshness being transmitted through the suspension, most likely your wheel bearing is failing. it will also make a sound similar to a jet engine which increases in volume and pitch as vehicle speed increases. from what you describe, i would recommend replacing the wheel bearing, and not the housing. hope this helps.

Well, I've been searching on the forums a bit and I think my rear, right wheel bearing has started to fail. Ever since Christmas, it's been making a grinding noise which increases as vehicle speed increases, sort of like you said. Whenever I turn right, the noise ceases.

The reason I question whether it's the wheel bearing housing or the wheel bearing is because the brake problem has been happening ever since I got the car. When I did the brake job, I think I just made it more noticeable.

I tried doing what you said and I didn't notice any vibration. What I have noticed while driving is that my car seems to vibrate more since Christmas, especially on deceleration and right before coming to a halt. I also had this weird grinding noise in my transmission on Christmas morning (about 0 degrees outside when I started it up) that went away when I got up to 50MPH after taking it easy for 30 minutes. The problem is that all these symptoms happen when I have a bent wheel so it's hard to tell what is what.