A Bearing Rumble?

[Poodle Head Mikey]

1993 Corolla base model w/1.6 engine

My 2006 Corolla does not do this - but on the 1993 there is sort of a rumble which varies with road speed - not with engine speed. Originally there was also a weirdly varying vibration which I thought was inter-related. But new Michelins with 4 oz. of Equal balancing sand in each one took care of 98% of the vibration. I had set out to replace the axles but with the car in the air the axles looked and felt nice.

Where would you all start looking? Wheels bearings? Or what else?

PHM
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[Poodle Head Mikey]

How can I add loading carrying capacity?

1993 Corolla base model w/1.6 engine 122K miles

Is there any easy way to beef up the rear suspension? To make the rear end sag less with heavy things in the trunk?

Or . . . any way at all? <g>

PHM
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[atte]

I think it is was we call cupping. If you move your hand over the profile of the rear tires against the normal rotating direction (so left rear tire anti-clockwise and right rear tire clockwise) you will feel that at the outer ends of the profile there is a height-difference. That makes the noise that you can compare with that of a worn wheelbearing.
A solution is to put the rear wheels front end front wheels at the rear axle. The advice of Michelin is to do that after 10.000 - 15.000 kms.

 

[Poodle Head Mikey]

Thanks but the new Michelins have about 200 miles on them

I didn't think of what you said but when I spun balanced the previous Goodyear tires three of them balanced to either 0.0 or 0.1 in three tries but the fourth tire took maybe ten spins and was then just Peppered with lead weights on both sides. <g>

As that peppered-wheel seemed like it must be a defective tire to me, and I was looking to resolve a 'vibration at speed' issue, I installed four new Michelins and put four ounces of Equal into each one. I would have preferred DynaBeads - but that shop only had Equal balancing powder.

Just for the sake of experiment and discussion - later today I will rotate the tires as you suggest - and we'll see what happens.

PHM
-------------

I think it is was we call cupping. If you move your hand over the profile of the rear tires against the normal rotating direction (so left rear tire anti-clockwise and right rear tire clockwise) you will feel that at the outer ends of the profile there is a height-difference. That makes the noise that you can compare with that of a worn wheelbearing.
A solution is to put the rear wheels front end front wheels at the rear axle. The advice of Michelin is to do that after 10.000 - 15.000 kms.