I just had a rear wheel bearing fail at 10,000 miles. What gives with that? Anyone hear of anything like that before? Was there a shortage of grease at the Lex factory that day?

I was getting a droning sound from the rear that got louder as you went faster. Opening the windows did NOT make the noise louder. My MPG dropped around 2.5 on the dash readout due to the friction.

 

Ouch. I assume you had no trouble obtaining a warranty fix?

 

I had this problem twice on my 2006 Lexus GS with only 8,000 miles and again at 10,000 miles. Such a lousy quality factory product. So far at 13,000 miles the new bearings are wonderful. No more droning turbine sounds.

 

Yeah, it was a warranty fix, but still a pain in the neck.

Hmmm, you have had TWO bearings fail! Sounds like a poor design. I just assumed some clown had forgotten to grease the bearings when they were installed at the factory.

 

I have been suspecting a rear bearing issue, but can not confirm. How does it really sound? How can I make sure? Thanks in advance.

 

Can you please confirm how you were able to confirm with the dealer that it was the rear bearing? Thanks. Can you describe the noise?

 

You can feel a drag on the car.

 

Like, when you are in neutral, you will feel tyhe car slowing down as if the brakes were on....???

 

Like when you let go of the brakes, the car doesnt want to move. Believe me, if you have a bearing failure, you will know it from the noise. Sounds like metal on metal grinding.

 

I will get my ear trained for this noise....I can feel and hear something, like a humming....bearing kind of noise. Just like an old transmission....

 

Well, basically I took the service guy for a ride and showed him the noise.

Down at low speeds you could tell nothing.

Up around 40 MPH you could start to hear a droning sound from the rear.

Up around 55 MPH it was pretty loud.

Up around 75 MPH you could not drown out the droning sound with the radio at pretty high sound level.

Up at 55 MPH and higher, you could start to feel a very small vibration that was in tune with the droning. I felt is thru my feet and in the transmission shift lever.

And, like I said before, the odd thing was that with the windows open, you actually heard the droning sound less. That is how I was sure it was not just tire tread separation.

 

And I am not sure of the exact failure, as I did not talk to the service tech afterward, but the lady rep said it was a "cracked" wheel bearing, whatever that means. Maybe the bearing race had a fracture.

 

The other telltale thing was that the droning sound was the same despite whatever gear the transmission was in. For instance, I could shift down from 5th to 4th, and the sound stayed the same if I kept the speed the same.

 

Droning....I could not put my finger on this type of sound....

 

Haven't had a problem with the RX yet, thankfully, but both times we had bearings fail on my wife's old Sebring convertible, it was a "spinning discs" sound. Those of you who are old-school and remember when cars still had spedometer cables, it sounds EXACTLY like a broken spedometer cable. If you don't remember that, it sounds kinda like you have the brakes on like 5%. Just that faint grinding sound.