I have a droning noise coming from the front of my Fabia. It starts around 30mph and gets louder as the car accelerates. Going round corners in either direction doesn't seem to affect the level of noise. I've recently had new tyres put on, so was thinking this could be the cause, however I've noticed that after driving, the wheel rims themselves are very warm. Could this be due to heat transferred from a knackered bearing or due to brakes dragging?

I think you'll need to check the brakes yourself, we can't guess these things over the interwebs. It doesn't sound like a wheel bearing to me.

What clearance should there be between the pads and disc? Seem fairly tight to me as requires some effort to rotate once wheel is off.

There will be no visible clearance, if each front wheel spins freely by hand then the brakes aren't dragging.

With the wheel on the hub, it does spin but comes to a fairly quick halt. It looks as if the brake pads are in contact with the discs without brake pressure being applied. How 'freely' should it be spinning?

Any ideas as to what the wheel bearing noise would be if it was that?

Thanks for replies so far.

Wheel bearing noise usually increases with speed and is more prominent when cornering. 

 

You say that you have just had new tyres fit and the nose appeared after this? Are you sure it's not just that the new tyres are noisier than the old ones? - I know I've changed to different tyres in the past and there has been a noticeable difference in road noise at speed between two different sets. Are the tyre pressures set right and have you checked the wheel nut torque of all the bolts? (it's good practice to check these after a few miles of having new tyres fit).

 

If your convinced it's something else then I'd start by giving the brakes a good clean up, that's assuming you feel confident doing this yourself? It would involve taking the alloy off, removing the calliper and pads to get good access to give everything a good going over. I usually use a few bottles of brake cleaner, cloths and a flat head screwdriver. I also re-grease the pins that the calliper slides on and put a little copper grease on the contact surfaces between the calliper and the pad to prevent sequel. You can also check for play in the bearing with the car jacked up by trying to rock the wheel on it's axis like this...

 

it would be pretty obvious if the brakes were dragging enough to cause a noise, if it turns by hand then its pretty much fine, it will stop quickly as it has the drag from the drivetrain to overcome.

sounds like a wheelbearing failure to me.

Run it up to 40mph with the front wheels off the ground safely and get someone to listen to each wheel as it spins and you will hear the noisey one, they can be hard to diagnose otherwise and you need special tools to fit them.

Hi wg100

I was so convinced that I'd a front wheel bearing failing that I bought a replacement bearing.

When preparing to remove the hub carrier I discovered that the caliper slide pins were not as free moving as they should be and suspected that the noise I was hearing was caused by slightly binding brakes which in turn caused a reverberation of the brake back plate which was a bit corroded!! This gave an amplified effect to the noise and after cleaning the slide pins and replacing the rubber 'damper' (which had swollen as I'd used Coppaslip as a lubricant!) on the inside end of the lower(?) slide pin on each side of the car the noise went!!! Needless to say the new bearing is still lying on the bench in the garage..........a couple of years have passed and no further noise!! I wasn't getting the increased noise on cornering either. Couldn't feel any roughness when turning the wheel either........and no way would it 'spin'!

Check your brakes first.............seeing as you've replaced the tyres I would say it's less likely to be caused by them.

Hope you get it sorted out.

Alan

I have the same and I also reckon its the brakes as I have done a few thousand miles and its not gotten worse (which I believe bearings would).....as people have said bearings noise change etc which this doesn't