We went out today and I noticed that there was a drone from the front driver's wheel when I reached 70.  As soon as I slowed down again it went away.  The only thing I can think might cause this is the wheel bearing.  Could this be right?

I had an oscillating drone  around 70mph which I noticed after changing tyres  ( turns out this was just coincidence) 

 

No play in wheel bearings, no rumble on turning wheel by hand , even used the car engine to turn all wheels when on car lift ( needed to lift all wheels off the ground as mine is a 4x4) and no noise detected even with a stethoscope.  Pass MoT and tested did not notice any thing  - I think the problem is the wheel bearing needs to be under load to notice the rumble/defect.

 

Tried swapping the front tires over to see if it was tyre noise  - but no change

 

But I found if I put the spare wheel on the nearside wheel the noise went away ( if I put it on the offside the oscillating noise was still there)

 

 Concluded the spare wheel being narrower ( a space saver on the 3.6)  loading the bearing differently and the near side front was therefore defective

 

Therefore changed the front nearside bearing ( found a unwanted one on E bay for £5 ) and the noise went away - Its not too difficult to change but you need a Triple square M12 socket bit to undo the bearing casing

 

original bearing lasted 60k miles 

 

Chris

1/ Look to see if your tyre is stepped or has a flat spot. There is plenty on the web about tyre stepping.

2/ Are both front tyres the same pressure ?

3/ Are you running non-identical front tyres ?

4/ wheel bearing would be the next thing to look at.

Similar to an issue I had before.  It was saw-tooth problem on the front tyres and had become progressively worse as they wore down further. I had the droning noise above mph only

I had horrendous droning, but from the rears.

 

Both factory original Pirelli Cinturato's were badly saw toothing.

 

A new pair of tyres on the rear and silence resumed!

We had all four changed recently to Michelin Primacy 3s.  Will check the pressures next to see if that's an issue.

run the palm of your hand over the tread around the circumference of the wheel in both directions , you'll feel any saw tooth then you'll know the tyres are wearing unevenly

I had this on my mk4 golf a couple of weeks after having wheel bearing replaced. Turned out to be tyre. It had worn funny anyway and once replaced it was fine. Iirc a weight had fallen off as well.  It did sound similar to wheel bearing but garage said change tyre and you'll be fine and they were right.