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What is this terrible sound coming from my rear axle?

3K views 30 replies 11 participants last post by  FordService 
#1 ·
I noticed this sound on my trip for Alabama to Ohio last week, it is extremely loud. I have determined that applying the brakes/emergency brake makes no difference, nor does being in gear. I believe it is coming from one of the wheels and not the gears or transmission. I do not see any fluid leak from the axle.

When the recording starts I am in neutral at 70 MPH, gradually slowing to a stop. The same noise can be heard during acceleration or while driving at any speed. It gets louder as I go faster. What is causing this noise to come from the rear of my car?

https://soundcloud.com/user-198553686/rear-axle-whine
 
#3 ·
Your clip is super distorted, but if there's (is there?) a metal-on-metal noise that's speed dependent, I would suspect differential carrier bearings are overheated and pitted.
 
#16 ·
So you haven't looked for a rock? Your car, your choice but I would make the effort if it was mine.

I am facing the same problem with my 2014 mustang. I took it to the ford dealership for inspection. they are saying that the rear axles are bent because I hit the curb and they won't cover it under warranty. I asked them to show me a damage as car is pretty low and there has to some kinda damage or bent parts. But they cannot show me anything. So I called Ford customer care and now they are saying that it won't be covered as dealer is saying that I hit the curb. Any idea what can I do in this case? I don't want to spend $1800 for something I didn't do.
Mine had a speed sensitive squeek that ended up being a bent axle, the service advisor said the same thing about prob being denied. My sales person fixed him and I got mine covered. I would have fought it if I needed to by pointing out my OEM tires/rims with no damage.
 
#7 ·
You can check your wheel bearings by jacking your mustang up and grab the tire and try to wiggle or move it for play, side to side and up and down. How many miles are on your mustang? I replaced my front wheel hubs at about 90k miles and they were SHOT and long overdue. Probably should replace them around 50-60k. When you put the plastic cap back over the nut that holds on the hub, use a little sealant on there (I used RTV) to avoid allowing moisture in there. And yes, you have to replace the whole hub assy. You can find them for a decent price on rockauto.
 
#8 ·
I am facing the same problem with my 2014 mustang. I took it to the ford dealership for inspection. they are saying that the rear axles are bent because I hit the curb and they won't cover it under warranty. I asked them to show me a damage as car is pretty low and there has to some kinda damage or bent parts. But they cannot show me anything. So I called Ford customer care and now they are saying that it won't be covered as dealer is saying that I hit the curb. Any idea what can I do in this case? I don't want to spend $1800 for something I didn't do.
 
#13 ·
I called a different dealer and they confirmed bearings are covered under powertrain so no worries there. I didn't have time to jack the car up, I was feeling around for heat and didn't notice any differences. I may jack it up this week, but more than likely I'm just going to park it and wait until Tuesday.

My car only has 41,000 miles. I just had my water pump replaced earlier in the year and I have a laundry list of other minor problems I want them to look at. I am not happy with Ford quality, I can't see myself buying another.
 
#15 ·
It's definitely bearings in your axle- either the axle bearings or the differential carrier bearings.
 
#18 · (Edited)
I had one get stuck behind the dust shield (air shield?) on my Tacoma....it made a terrible sound. The shield is a thin piece of tin on the inside of the rotor...just a pea sized piece of stone that all I had to do after removing wheel was pry on the shield enough so the rock fell out. idk what yours is but since I have a safe place to work I'd rather do that then spend the time at the dealer if that is all it is. Since it is the rear you need to jack up and support both sides of the rear to be able to rotate wheels to try and isolate the problem.
 
#20 ·
I jacked my car up last night and recorded my wheels moving. When I tried to jiggle the wheels there is a very slight movement, definitely shouldn't happen.

The video below speaks for itself, both wheels look like this. Please tell me it's wheel bearings. I really don't have the patience to fight Ford on their ****** quality. I baby this car, I have not wrecked it or abused it. I'm about to cut my losses with this vehicle and never buy another Ford again.


Click here for the video
 
#22 ·
Rotors seem fine to me, if they are warped I cannot tell. It's definitely not wobbling like the tires. So with that, it looks like my problem is either bad tires or bad rims... I can still hear grinding so my wheel bearings are probably shot because of the bad wheels like you mentioned.
I purchased these wheels from American Muscle's ebay account on 1/13/2015, I hope they work with me to resolve this. Will Ford fight me on the warranty work since these are after market rims?

Here's a video of the rotor, I'll try and get a better one.
Gfycat - jiffier gifs through HTML5 Video Conversion. Fast, simple gif hosting without size limits.
 
#24 ·
Funny you should mention that. I had removed them from the front the last time I rotated the tires and that fixed my front end issues, or it just moved it to the back (if the wheels were bad).

I just removed the rear clips. Haven't mounted the tires yet but I doubt that tiny clip was causing that much visible wobble
 
#26 ·
Can a tire shop tell me if my tires or wheels are bad? Yes

Wouldn't that have showed up when they aligned + balanced it should have but you may have damaged the tires by driving with the clips and yes a small offset near the axle will show large at the tread.
try with clips removed see what happens and hopefully you owe Ford an apology. did this show up out of nowhere or did it start after doing something on your car?
 
#28 ·
American Muscle apparently doesn't handle the issues with their ebay store (even though I was billed by Turn 5 Inc.) so now I have to send an ebay message and wait. This does not sound promising. I thought I got a good deal at $980 for a set of 4 AM wheels, but apparently not. It's going to cost me another $1400 for wheels plus whatever damage they have caused over the last 8 months if they're not willing to assist.
 
#29 ·
Took my car to midas, 3 different techs said wheel bearings are good and solid, and the wobble isn't that bad apparently. He wasn't sure why the back tires have about a .5" wobble and said it could be the tire bands. His best guess after driving it is that there's a brake problem. But I'm not sure I agree because when I apply the brakes the sound stays exactly the same.

I guess I'll just wait for Ford on Tuesday. I'm losing sleep over it
 
#30 ·
Everything has gone smoothly, they have not fought me on anything. I get the car back Thursday but from what I understand my pinion bearing went bad which also caused another bearing in the rear differential to go bad. They also found metal shavings in the case. They said they rebuilt the backend (I don't know the details yet) and the noise is gone. I just hope nothing happens with the differential because of this since I only have ~20,000 miles remaining on my power train warranty. As far as I know they did not replace any of the gears and I'm not sure if this issue could have damaged or degraded them.
 
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