Noticed a "wub wub wub" noise starting from I think the rear passenger side recently. Goes away on left hand turns and worse on right hand turns. Checked tyres today and rear passenger side tyre outside edge 1.5 inch band has almost no tread left, rest of tyre around 3 - 4 mm. Drivers side rear absolutely fine at 3 - 4 mm. Could a wheel bearing cause this wear? Also is it a DIY job to replace bearing. I know the front really isn't and I had that replaced at the garage sometime ago for the same sort of noise which it cured.

Thanks for advise.

Wheel bearing being the culprit is unlikely, but not impossible.

Wheel bearing would usually give an audible warning before it got bad enough to cause excessive wheel wobble to the point it would scrub off tyre tread. Have the wheels taken a knock or been balanced lately?

Replacing the bearing isn't beyond the scope of a DIY task ... although the bearing needs to be pressed in/out with something like 2 ton of pressure, so you could remove the parts yourself and trundle off down to a local workshop to have the existing bearing extracted and the new one pressed in.

Regarding the "wub wub wub" sound .... not a dubstep fan by any chance?

... so you could remove the parts yourself and trundle off down to a local workshop to have the existing bearing extracted and the new one pressed in.

+1

Last time I did some interference fit bearings, I did one with my Dad's Record no.25 vice, plus a bit of scaffold pole, and it was bloody hard work. The second one I took the bits to my local garage and let them drift them out and in on a hydraulic press. The latter was worth every penny and I wouldn't do it with a vice again.

Bearings don't normally wub wub wub (in my experience). It's usually a more constant drone that increases on cornering. Although I suppose it might be one dead roller in the race - pure conjecture on my part.

The scrubbing's a bit disconcerting though as it sounds quite severe. If it's all the way around the tyre in equal measure I think I'd start by checking the suspension bushes and alignment for whether the wheel's toeing in excessively.

Gaz

Car is booked into garage Friday PM for them to hopefully diagnose what is wrong.

I'll post what they find.

Garage diagnosed rear shock.

So I've replaced them today and got 2 new tyres and all is quiet again. One was leaking oil and the other felt like it was full of sand!

Next question is .............. will the front shocks need doing? Or do they last longer? Car has 180K on it.

Ignoring the pinch bolts for a second, is it a straight forward job to do? I will need to get a spring compressor of course.

The pinch bolt on one side will be fine to get out but the other side I'm fairly certain won't. If I soak the bolt every day for a couple of weeks with WD40 is it likely to come out relatively easy or will it still be very problematic?

When I had a wheel bearing replaced a while back the Skoda garage (SMC Exeter) didn't charge me any extra labour for getting the pinch bolt out (hence why one bolt will now come out easily as I've kept it greased and free to remove) and I know it took them some time to remove it.

Thanks for any advice.