My fiances 03 Cooper S has always had a little front end noise. Sounds like a tire rubbing or a wheel bearing in a pulsating sound. I looked all around it and just changed the rotors and pads on Friday. Didn't notice anything at all odd or rubbing. It's just on the passenger side. When you go straight you hear it, when you turn hard left it gets worse and when you turn right it's less noticeable. Had similiar symptoms on a duramax and it was a wheel bearing. Just wanted to get get some opinions on this. What do you all think?

 

hey whatever happened to your problem? I have a whooshing sound coming from the front end of my car. Sounds kind of like the pads dragging on the rotors but I'm afraid it may be a wheel bearing. I'm running et35 offset wheels and -1.5 camber so I'm afraid I've been putting too much pressure on the bearing. I've got 56000 on it and had the brakes changed under warranty at around 8000 (something like that). I'm not really sure what shape the brakes are in as I haven't inspected them lately, but the wear sensor light hasn't illuminated nor have I experienced a decrease in pedal feel.

 

Chuck,

I had a bearing like noise coming from the right front on my '03 MCS, replaces break pads, rotors and bearing and the noise was still there. Believe that the noise is in the half shaft/CV joints. I am replacing them as we speak.

Also had a rear left bearing go. Replaced brake pads and rotors as well as the bearing. The rear bearings stay very tight even when they have a problem.

MiniGSport.

 

We put new tires on and I can't seem to hear it anymore. Weird... Didn't sound like tires to me but i'm going to keep an eye out for it and see if I notice it again. The tires had been wearing odd anyway.

 

Chuck,

You may be correct with the tires causing the noise. I test drove the new half shaft and no change in nose. I hope it is not the tires as they are relativitly new, 10K miles, and I have not put any flat spots on them. Going to rotate the tires to see if I can find the tire.

MiniGSport

 

hmmm tires yeah that's interesting. I've had my tires on my car for about 10 months, maybe 5K miles but I just noticed the noise a few weeks ago. Is the tire noise you think something that would just develop over time or was it there immediately after replacing?

 

Vernon.

I am not exactly sure. I know that when I purchased my mini it was a district managers demo with 7K on the clock. After about 25K it had developed scalops on the tires and noise that sounded like a bad bearing. I let it run. At about 45K I replaced the tires, the noise subsided for a while. At 50K the noise came back, so I gave it to a very trusted repare shop to look at the left rear bearing. The rear brakes (pads and rotors) were shot and the left rear bearing had a thump. Brakes and bearing were replaced. The werd part was that the bearing was very solid and not loose like you would expect a bad bearing to be. However there was still noise in the system. I isolated it to the front right, and replaced the rotor, and pads on the front, then the right front bearing and hafl shaft. The thump still exists and this thread on the thump interested me. By the way the tires I used as a replacement were Michilin Pilot run flats, the orginal Dunlaps ran much harder but better in the snow.

So a long story to get to your question, which is I believe that all of this happens over time. Unless you flat spot a tire with a panic brake and the traction control off. Bearings causing tire problems then tire problems continuing and hopefully not causing bearing issues, a cycle that may be expensive to get out of. Also, if tire wear is uneven, it could be caused by alignment and a bad shock. Bad shocks are very unlikely in todays world.

Any thoughts? MiniGSport.