Constant Speed Related Drone/Hum

[jammacdo]

Guys

My Honda Accord Vtec 2002 has been off the road all summer whilst the Elise was being used. Now its back on the road and there's a constant hum coming from the front. Its wheel speed related, not engine speed (its still there if you dip the clutch or knock it out of gear.) At 60mph it sounds like a propeller plane in the distance.

Is this a wheel bearing about to let go? It just passed its MOT last week so I would expect the bearings to have no play in them.

It also just had all four discs n pads replaced and the hum is still there (I was hoping it was the rusty discs but it wasn't.)

Any suggestions welcome.

Thanks.

 

[Country Bumpkin]

A bearing of any denomination doesn't necessarily have to have excess play to be worn or faulty. All it takes is a small pit or gouge on one of the internal components where the plating has worn away from one or more ball bearing or taper bearing etc and it's inner or outer race [seat].
This can cause excessive noise and will generate excess heat. It is possible that one of your bearings is at fault. Sometimes it is hard to diagnose as it doesn't generally show up as play in itself.
Something else to look at as a visual is if one of the driveshaft gaitors has split, this is normally easy to see due to the amount of C.V. grease sprayed everywhere. Things like this may well have been perfect at the time of the M.O.T. and could even have failed after the test, they don't always show signs of a potential split which would have been noted on the report, whereas a full split or tear would have been a fail.

 

[HDi fun]

It may not be coming from the front, either. Tracing the source of internal noise is very difficult.

Does seem like a wheel bearing or CV joint, although the latter generally click and crack when cornering.

 

[RobBentley]

The R36 has an annoying drone. Turned out to be..

...the girlfriend sat in the passenger seat.

Hope that helps

 

[lutonmatt]

like that one rob


and is likey to be a front bearing so hard to fail a front bearing due to you cant get any speed up on a spin like you can on the rears due to the gear box

and if it has movement on the fronts then they are very bad

but worth taking it back down to the garage most of the time we can tell what one its coming from and some garages have a little thing that we can plug clips onto each wheel /hub and drive it and then can tell that way