Why is my car making a clanging noise that speeds up?
A clanging front-end noise that gets louder with speed and causes road feel in the wheel and pedal leaves drivers wondering if they are dealing with a failing wheel bearing. Even after checking the tires and replacing the front driveshafts, the persistent noise makes it difficult to know whether the issue is a bad wheel bearing or just a minor quality of life problem.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
- 1Rotating tires to the rear
- 2Getting a full alignment
- 3Paying a shop a diagnostic fee to use an ultrasonic listening device
- 4Checking for rubbing plastic trim
- 5Putting the car in neutral at speed to test if RPM affects the noise
- 6Applying brake cleaner
- 7Inspecting the brake rotor, dust shield, pads, and calipers
- 8Checking the wheel bearings
In their words
Unedited, most upvoted first, each linked to the thread it came from.
“Its a sort of clanging noise, almost in a steam engine like tempo.”source ↗
“There is nothing in my tyres, i just replace both driveshafts on the front. Is it a wheelbearing???”source ↗
“Noise started a couple days ago but was hardly noticeable and seemed to go away with brake cleaner, went to move the car today and now it’s very loud.”source ↗
“Still noticing loud road noise that sounds like it is from the front and road feel in the wheel and pedal which was expected, the noise is almost always noticeable & naturally gets louder as I am going faster. Does this sound like a quality of life issues at this point vs possible wheel bearing issue?”source ↗
“Now all of the sudden I'm hearing a grinding sound occasionally, similar to a wheel bearing going bad.”source ↗
“It makes the sound as I'm cruising about 10-30 mph, but when I lightly hold the brakes the sound goes away, sometimes for a couple minutes.”source ↗
“After getting down here the car started making a loud noise from the right rear side. It starts happening around 20mph, gets louder with speed, and is probably loudest around 40-45 mph. Once you start going faster than that it quiets down but never stops making the noise.”source ↗
“had a similar situation where my rotor was bad and the pads were smooth as glass”source ↗
Where this came up
People with this problem also raised
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