Rear End Droning?

Spriter

Spriter

New member
Hey everyone! Im in the process of trying to diagnose the source of a droning noise I am experiencing with my 05 4WD V6 SR5 T4R. I was hoping you guys could help point me in the right direction as I have attempted a few things without much change.

What is happening:
- A droning noise in the rear that is tied to wheel speed is occurring. Noise is most prominent at 30MPH, but gets a bit louder at higher speeds
- The noise goes away when cornering (either left or right, does not matter)
- Car pulls to the right at all times, whether when accelerating, when braking, and when coasting even with perfect alignment (feels almost like torque steer)

What I have already attempted to remedy:
- I have replaced rear brake pads + rotors (this seemed to modify the droning noise to be a bit quieter, but not eliminate it)
- lightly clean the parking brake mechanism (they appear to be extremely dirty, and my cleaning was not thorough)
- Tested Rear wheels for play (to check wheel bearing integrity)

What I plan to do:
- Replace parking brake mechanisms and shoes (My leading theory is a parking brake is dragging and causing the noise and car pulling to the right)
- Inspect Rear Diff Gear oil (could these be symptoms of a blown up rear diff?)

With the information detailed above, what do you guys think is the direction i should take in regards to troubleshooting? Im hoping my plans listed above should resolve, but I would greatly appreciate input if I am going the wrong direction with this all.
 
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I just checked both rear wheels a few moments ago, no play seems apparent. Additionally, the car does not vibrate/oscillate at highway speed like it did when front wheel bears were bad.
 
When you replaced the rear pads and rotors did you also thoroughly check the calipers too insure they're not seizing even a little bit?

You say it pulls to the right when accelerating and braking, does this mean it doesn't pull when you're coasting/decelerating?
 
AuSeeker said:
When you replaced the rear pads and rotors did you also thoroughly check the calipers too insure they're not seizing even a little bit?

You say it pulls to the right when accelerating and braking, does this mean it doesn't pull when you're coasting/decelerating?
Click to expand...

I slide the housing back and forth across the slide pin prior to disassembly to confirm they travel fine without interference, but besides from that I did not do any further testing unfortunately. I did not consider a seized caliper at the time.

And no, it pulls at all times. I will rephrase the OP to remove that ambiguity.
 
Spriter said:
I slide the housing back and forth across the slide pin prior to disassembly to confirm they travel fine without interference, but besides from that I did not do any further testing unfortunately. I did not consider a seized caliper at the time.

And no, it pulls at all times. I will rephrase the OP to remove that ambiguity.
Click to expand...

On a seized caliper it is the piston/s that seize/gets stuck in the piston bore/s which causes the pad to be constantly pressed against the rotor and "dragging", a simple test without taking anything apart is too drive around a bit and then check each wheel hub for being warmer/hotter than the rest, none should be really very warm or hot but they could be slightly warm which is normal, if you have or could borrow a infrared heat gun/thermometer it works very well for checking the hubs for one or more being much warmer/hotter than it should be.

A severely seized caliper can easily make it pull, another thing that can cause it to pull is a defective tire, I replaced all of my tires about 6 months ago, before I had a bad right hand pull all the time and I figured it was either brakes or alignment or both, the tires were close to needing to be replaced so I figure I would start there and then do an alignment and then brakes....well after the new tires it drives straight as an arrow and I still haven't touch the alignment or brakes.

That being said even "good" tires can sometimes make it pull, so if you find that nothing else seems to be wrong try putting the tires from the left side on the right and the right on the left side and see if the pulling changes.

Tire road noise can possibly be the cause of your droning as well, but I think you need to have the differential checked to see if the pinion bearing is causing the droning.
 
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Hope you find the issue and it’s an easy fix.

I have an ‘05 4x4 with 180k on it and the rear diff went bad internally in the gears. We noticed an odd noise 1.5 years ago and it got increasingly worse. I was shocked it was the rear diff and upon inspection the gears and internal pieces were not shiny and clean. The previous owner had never changed the fluid. It’s my wife’s car so that ruled out crossing a river or getting water in there too! ��

A shop should be able to diagnose this rather quick for you. I HOPE it’s not the rear diff and is something else though.
 
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Spriter said:
Hey everyone! Im in the process of trying to diagnose the source of a droning noise I am experiencing with my 05 4WD V6 SR5 T4R. I was hoping you guys could help point me in the right direction as I have attempted a few things without much change.

What is happening:
- A droning noise in the rear that is tied to wheel speed is occurring. Noise is most prominent at 30MPH, but gets a bit louder at higher speeds
- The noise goes away when cornering (either left or right, does not matter)
- Car pulls to the right at all times, whether when accelerating, when braking, and when coasting even with perfect alignment (feels almost like torque steer)

What I have already attempted to remedy:
- I have replaced rear brake pads + rotors (this seemed to modify the droning noise to be a bit quieter, but not eliminate it)
- lightly clean the parking brake mechanism (they appear to be extremely dirty, and my cleaning was not thorough)
- Tested Rear wheels for play (to check wheel bearing integrity)

What I plan to do:
- Replace parking brake mechanisms and shoes (My leading theory is a parking brake is dragging and causing the noise and car pulling to the right)
- Inspect Rear Diff Gear oil (could these be symptoms of a blown up rear diff?)

With the information detailed above, what do you guys think is the direction i should take in regards to troubleshooting? Im hoping my plans listed above should resolve, but I would greatly appreciate input if I am going the wrong direction with this all.
Click to expand...

I had the exact problem. I can almost guarantee you that it’s a rear wheel bearing. Put it on four jack stands and put it in drive. Go listen to the rear wheels. Most probably the right rear. My bearing had no play in it when pushing and pulling on it. I sure could hear it when it was revolving.
 
Bearings, especially rears dont always have play in them when they are bad. I would not rule those out. As mentioned earlier, put it up on jack stands and listen that way
 
Rear wheel bearing is definitely a droning sound. Pulling would indicate the stuck caliper or bad ebrake system.
Possible that you have two bad problems.
 
Thank you all for your advice, its helped me think this issue through! That said, I do have an update.

I have replaced my Rear Right Caliper and now have noticed a minor reduction in pulling, if any. Im still unsure if placebo is at play. When braking hard or accelerating, it still pulls to right. Also, almost no change in the droning noise was observed, it occurs just the same as before the caliper swap.

I have checked the wheel for scraping noise/resistance and did not notice any (only noise came from brake on rotor when tested in the air).

So now I'm some what unsure as what my next steps are. From the consensus in this thread and my findings it seems the following are the plausible theories:

-Seized FRONT RIGHT Caliper (why else would it still pull to the right?)
-A bad rear wheel bearing (Unsure if this is still plausible as no noise, resistance or wobbling is noted.
-Rear Differential is going bad
-Bad Parking brake (This would create the pulling, and could cause the aforementioned droning noise correct?)


Some more details to add:
After changing out the rear brake pads and rotors the droning noise was dramatically reduced, but nothing changed later on when swapping the caliper afterwards (this would indicate possibly a bad parking brake over a seized caliper correct?
When cornering, regardless of which side (left or right) the drone is modified and reduced to almost unnoticeable levels.
Droning noise "feels" like it is coming from LEFT REAR wheel, which is confounding
 
Get it on a lift and check the pinon bearing for noise. Make sure you have qualified mechanic work on rear end. The preload on pinon bearing is important. The brake pulling could be calipers or front wheel bearing.
 
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I appreciate everyone's input in trying to help me resolve this issue.

To answer some questions, Yes I have lifted it and listened for bearing noise, of which I do not seem to be able to detect (that said im not using a stethoscope.) At the same time, i didn't notice differential noise, but I may have to try it again listening through a screw driver to confirm this.

Now for what ive done since my last post.

I have now replaced both the FRONT RIGHT and REAR RIGHT calipers in an attempt to fix a potential stuck caliper that could of been causing the dragging to the right while driving. Unfortunately no change in braking behavior and no change in droning noise.

While replacing the calipers, i checked the rear e-brakes by checking that i could turn the rear wheels by hand with the e-brake disengaged (this was done to check if they are dragging, since if they were dragging id be unable to rotate them by hand since the ebrake would hold the wheel in place)

So now this leaves me with only a few more options for the root cause (hopefully?):
Rear Wheel Bearings (I cant seem to detect issues with them, might go get a laser thermometer and check temps of the wheels at this point since i cant seem to detect any problems)
Front LEFT wheel bearing (I had replaced the Front Right half a year ago due to it being in horrible shape, and the only remaining one would be front left. Though the droning seems to be coming from the rear, unless its resonating through the car and tricking me, which i wont rule out i suppose. Will have to lift it up after work today and examine this wheel as I havent looked into the front much at all regarding this issue)
Rear Diff (Id like this to not be the case, but the symptoms dont seem to line up, droning is not linear in volume with wheel speed and noise changes dramatically when cornering and does not change what so ever going from 4wd to 2wd)
Suspension joints/connections? (Should I start inspecting ball joints and various connectors if the others fail to be found as the root cause?)
 
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Issue has been resolved! I wanted to give an update since I hate happening on year old threads with no answer or "i fixed it" messages with no other details to help others.

In my car's case, the actual issue was the front right wheel bearing. The droning was resonating in such a way that it appeared to come from the rear of the car. Additionally, when changing rear brakes/rotors the droning noise had changed which led me away from focusing on the front of the car.

All in all i swapped in a new aftermarket wheel bearing assembly and the car was good to go, and most noticeably had dramatically better road manners at high speed (the bearing had some play at 12 and 6 positions)
 
Some youtube videos suggest it is hard to distinguish between front and rear wheel, bearing noise, could it be front ??
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It was somewhat for me, as the noise "felt" like it was coming from the rear, and the wheels didn't appear to have much play on them. In my case i only targeted the front wheel bearing as i already replaced the Front Right, and it was pretty logical that the front left was on its way out too.
 
Glad you figured it out, I just went through the same thing and it turned out to be the right rear in my case. Replacing a front hub bearing is simple, replacing the rear is much more involved, and ended up costing about a grand since I went a head and did both right and left.
 
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