Mark: Hi, it's Mark Bossert. I'm here with Bernie Pawlik, Pawlik Automotive in Vancouver, BC Canada, Vancouver's best auto service experience, and we're talking cars. How you doing Bernie?
Bernie: Doing very well.
Mark: So today's guest is a 2015 Audi Q5. What was going on with its vehicle?
Bernie: So the owner of this vehicle had noted there was a kind of humming sound when the vehicle was being driven down the road and thought at first it might be the tires. Had the tires changed seasonally, you know, from summer to winter, and the noise seemed to be there still. So knew there was something wrong, brought it in for us to diagnose.
Mark: So what was the procedure and what did you find?
Bernie: Yeah, so the procedure is basically driving the vehicle and listening to the client's concern. Of course, we could hear the humming sound, which gets louder as you speed up. And that's usually indicative of a wheel bearing problem. Not always, but most of the time it's a wheel bearing. From that, we brought it up on the hoist and being an all wheel drive vehicle, we can actually run the vehicle up on the hoist, get all the wheels spinning. Take a stethoscope and we can listen to each wheel and pinpoint it that the right front wheel bearing was worn out. Everything else was good. And that was the cause of the noise.
Mark: So sometimes when you find something that you're replacing on one side, you replace on both sides. Was that needed this time?
Bernie: No. With wheel bearings, we find you just do one side. There's no reason to change both. There's no financial advantage to changing. Sometimes when you're in there, why not change the other one? There's no advantage. Things like suspension parts, for instance, like if a shock absorber is worn on one side or a strut, you change the other side because otherwise the vehicle would ride unevenly. But a wheel bearing just rotates and spins. It doesn't do anything else. So it doesn't matter whether you do the other ones. If they're not noisy and worn, leave them. They could last for another 10 years.
Mark: All right, so here's our guest, Q5, 2015. Good shape. What kind of mileage?
Bernie: I think it was around a hundred. I can't remember exactly, but yeah, it wasn't too high. Good shape. You know, at this point it's 10 years old. It's kinda surprising, but yeah, pretty low mileage.
So when you replace a wheel bearing on an Audi Q5 and many Audi products. This is what you get these days. This is a bearing with a mounting bracket. Already pre mounted. You just have to pop it outta the old mount, unbolt it and bolt in the new one. Which sounds really easy, but it's not. Because what happens is over the years, you've got a steel plate mounted inside and aluminum housing and corrosion develops over time from dissimilar metal corrosion. And they're hard to get out. You can undo all the bolts and just getting 'em out is a quite an ordeal.
Once you get it out, there's corrosion, and I didn't take a before picture, but the amount of corrosion is just horrendous. Like you couldn't just put the bearing back in. So we have to clean everything out. We have wire wheels that we use on an angle grinder, and we go in there and remove all the corrosion.
Mark: We can see a lot of metal's worn away on this edge here.
Bernie: Yes, exactly. Yeah. And here, yeah, it's just pitted and actually disintegrated. Yeah. Yeah. Now that's not a problem because I mean, if it was way worse, it could be a problem. We've never run into anything any worse than what you see here. But it's nonetheless worn, but the thing bolts in fine and it's not out of angle or anything. It'll last forever and it won't be any problem.
Mark: And there's enough metal left there for a good contact area?
Bernie: Oh yeah, absolutely. Yeah. That's just the nature of how it is. So, you know, the job that is seemingly, I mean, you need big tools because especially the axle bolt, the bolt that holds the axle in place is very tight. So you need big tools to do that, but you think, oh, maybe I'll do it in my backyard, but not the case. Plus you have to pull the hub out with a press and there's all sorts of things that are involved. It's not quite so easy.
Mark: So a hundred thousand kilometres, is that roughly a time when this sort of failure or wear starts to manifest?
Bernie: You never know with wheel bearings. You know, some cars wheel bearings last forever. Other cars, they seem to go more frequently. Over the years, I noticed Audi seem to have wheel bearing issues. They seem to wear out. They seem to be better than they used to be, like 20 years ago, but they do have wheel bearing issues.
And the other thing of course, is sometimes if you hit a curb too hard, it might cause damage on a wheel bearing. Hard to say, but that can be a cause. Just depends.
Mark: Necessary maintenance to keep the vehicle running properly. If you just ignored the hum, what would happen?
Bernie: Well, the interesting thing with wheel bearings is you can actually go quite a long time with them making the horrible noise and they seem to still spin fine and work fine. But eventually they will start breaking apart and your wheel could seize or possibly break off or something like that. Not the wheel, but the wheel hub could come off.
Mark: So that's where the tire end up instead of being vertical ends up on an angle.
Bernie: Yeah. That would happen first, but it's pretty rare. You know, we do lots of wheel bearings and they can hum for a long time and still keep going, but I wouldn't recommend it. And not only that, it just sounds terrible when you're in a car, it sounds like an airplane taking off. It's not pleasant. And an Audi's a luxury car, so you get used to that nice quiet feel of it. So it just makes sense to fix it.
Mark: There you go. If you're looking for service for your Audi, if you got any weird hums or noises, the people to see in Vancouver are Pawlik Automotive. You can reach them online to book your appointment, pawlikautomotive.com. Or you can call them at (604) 327-7112. You have to book ahead. They're always busy. Pawlik Automotive in Vancouver, BC Canada. Thanks so much for watching and listening. Thanks, Bernie.
Bernie: Thank you, Mark. Thanks for watching.
