C6 Wheel Bearing Noise (Videos and PDF's)
 

I've recently been on a mission to quieten down my 2005 Corvette. It has had a horrible roaring noise since I've owned it, most of which I originally attributed to the worn out tires. After replacing the tires with the quietest ones I could find (at least according to the internets) I still had a pretty loud noise when making left turns. I say when making turns, but in reality it was more like it went away when turning right, but otherwise was there more often than not.

I did some reading and found that this was most likely a wheel bearing going bad

Here's a video of me driving home just before changing the bearings


You can clearly hear the noise get louder on anything other than right turns.

Unsure which one to replace on the RH side, I decided to just replace both to get it over with. I ordered rather cheap bearings off of Amazon (I know, I may be doing the job again soon..but remember I wasn't even sure this was the problem) for about $100 total and got to work. After pulling the calipers off, it was clear both bearings weren't in great shape. Here is a video of me spinning the front RH bearing while still on the car:


And another one, I believe this was the rear (and off of the car obviously). Sorry about the poor camera work.



These things should be dead SILENT on good bearings, so these obviously were not good

After changing them it's like driving a new car. It's eerily quiet now. For better or worse, I can hear every little rattle now that used to be covered up by the tire/bearing noise.

So, if you're having "road noise" that is louder when making a RH or LH turn, and new tires didn't help, consider it could be a wheel bearing or two. I would have sworn it was a tire issue, but my results prove it was not.

I've attached a few PDF's I found on how to replace the bearings. I did both in 2-3 hours total, so it's not all that bad to actually do

Hopefully this helps someone in the future.