Hey all, long time lurker and first time poster on the site, so hopefully I'm doing this right haha. Anyways, I'm having some trouble figuring out where a noise on my 2016 f150 is coming from and could use a second opinion. A quick backstory; last December I had a wheel bearing go bad, and because it was winter and I don't have a garage, I opted to let my local mechanic fix it for me. He replaced the front drivers side. Well, fast forward to last week, I started noticing a slight grinding noise and vibration that starts around 35-40 mph that gets more noticeable as I increase speed. It gets worse as I turn right, which I thought was weird because it sounds and feels identical to the problem I had in December. I thought there is no way that new bearing started failing in just 6 months. However, when my local guy did the work last year, he was very vague about the type of bearing he used to replace my old one, and he charged me quite a bit more than I was expecting, which made me suspicious. So now I started thinking maybe he botched it somehow, like didn't properly grease the bearing or used a cheap one and that is why it's failing prematurely. Being overly confident in my diagnosis and bit pressed about the whole ordeal from December, I went ahead and just bought a new bearing. I installed it yesterday. Everything went fine except I effed up my CV axle (that's another story). I had a buddy give me a ride to the auto parts store and I picked up a new CV axle, and installed that. So now I have a new timken wheel bearing and a new CV axle on that side and... the noise is still there! All of my wheels seem to pass the spin/shake test, and when I was installing the CV axle and bearing, I checked all the tie rod ends and ball joints and everything looks great. No ripped boots, everything is nice and sturdy. So now I'm going through the motions trying to figure out what is causing the issue. Dust cover rubbing the rotor? No, that looks fine. I read online that low power steering fluid can cause a similar noise, but the fluid level is at max and I can't hear the pump struggling when I turn, so I don't think the pump itself is going bad. I had also heard if the motor mounts are shot, the driveshaft could be shifting and grinding against something in the undercarriage, but both front and rear driveshafts aren't getting any scarring, so I think I can safely rule that out. I installed a 1.5" leveling kit earlier in May and had the alignment done, so I thought maybe something had settled and is causing the tires to rub somewhere because of the change in suspension geometry, but there is no clear marks on my tires or other components which would indicate that anything is rubbing. I'm honestly a bit dumbfounded. Because it's only really noticeable at speed, it can't tell what's going on when my head is out the window because the wind obscures my hearing and obviously, I cant see anything. The truck drives fine, it doesn't pull to one side or anything like that. I'm running 33" tires, 275/70R18's. There's a slight poke on them but nothing ridiculous by any means, so I'm thinking it's probably not related directly to my wheel/tire setup.

I know it's hard to diagnose a problem when it's just somebody describing it over text and you can't hear or feel it yourself, but can you think of anything else that would cause this? What other components that are going bad would be more noticeable at speed and when turning right? Although it sounds like it's in the front, could it be something in the rear? Can rear end components make more noise when turning also? Thanks for your time everyone.

 

Sound like this?

 

Thank you for sharing. It's definitely similar. Mine isn't quite as loud as the one in the video, I can feel it more than I can hear it, but I'll definitely get the truck up on some stands today and inspect the IWE's and vacuum lines.

 

Were the teeth meshed on the IWE and CV shaft before you torqued down the axle nut to 27-30 pounds?