We had the rear driver's side bearing replaced under warranty at about 30,000 miles. It was making the the same sounds. (2014 Forester 2.5)

 

thanks qkh178. I'm going to jack the car up later and check the wheel for any loose play. but from what you're saying sounds like I'll have to replace it.

 

72,000 miles with no bearing problems.

 

My old SH (same bearings) had a rear get noisy mid-life. Even after another year of driving I couldn't be sure which it was, so replaced both.

 

Any chance you remember how many miles you had before replacement?

I'm at 87k and might have a bearing issue. I have a hum at certain speeds that sounds like AT terrain tires, which I have, but I never noticed the sound when the tires were new. So either I've got bad wheel bearings or my tires have just gotten noisier as they've worn. I guess I'll look into it more.

For me it almost sounds like there's a truck or jeep with AT tires riding behind me or beside me. Makes me feel like I'm being followed. I got new tires about 5k miles ago (yoko yk580s), but on stock wheels, so I don't think the hum is coming from my tires.

I did jack up my car and looked at both front and rear Driver side wheels yesterday, no loose play. I was just lazy and didn't do passenger side so I'll be inspecting that side sometime soon.

Our maintenance schedule says inspect wheel bearings every 60k miles. I didn't realize it was on the schedule until looking at the service manual. Maybe it is time for some new bearings....:crying:

 

I'm at 87k and might have a bearing issue. I have a hum at certain speeds that sounds like AT terrain tires, which I have, but I never noticed the sound when the tires were new. So either I've got bad wheel bearings or my tires have just gotten noisier as they've worn. I guess I'll look into it more.

 

IIRC the noise first became evident at about 80k (sounding just like tyre noise) and looking at the date the parts were ordered I'd reckon there was around 100-110k on it when they were finally replaced. Only one was a problem, and when pressed apart there was a surprising amount of heat and damage to one of it's races. More than the noise would've had you think...

 

What about the gear oil in the rear,is it low,my rear differential oil
looked like Salad Dressing at 27,000 miles,it could be yukki gear oil! ed

 

I had to have the front passenger side wheel bearing replaced under powertrain warranty at 40k

 

this is included in the powertrain warranty???

 

What were the symptoms of that? Like what kind of noise were you hearing?

 

It was a slight humming/whirring sound that would get louder the higher the speed I reached..at first it could only be heard in a sweetspot (60-70mph) but after not getting it fixed right away (first dealer insisted I was hearing things since they couldnt replicate) i was able to hear it at any speed...since it was my passenger side front i also felt considerable vibration on hard left turn ins that put stress and pressure on that wheel.

 

^Ok thanks for the info. The noise sounds similar to what I'm hearing on my XT. Noise definitely increases with speed for me, but don't notice any vibration really. I mean there is a little vibration and noise turning near full lock in parking lots. I think that is just my AT tires rubbing on the fender plastic though. Not sure if my humming/whirring sound is just my tires or actual bearing failure. Guess I'll just wait and see if it gets any worse because I'm sure my dealer would be happy to take my money and replace them whether they need to or not haha

 

The left wheel bearing on my '14 Forester Limited had to be replaced at about 29,000 miles. Our '15 Outback Limited also needed the same bearing replaced at about 9,500 miles.

 

So update I haven't got to the point where I feel like i need to take my car in for repair yet..but I do think a repair will be necessary soon. I called a dealership for cost estimates on replacement of wheel bearings and depending on which one it is they said front is $550 ish for each, while the rear is more expensive at $640ish. Which I thought should've been the opposite.

Anyway, the droning hum hasn't changed much, but the sound is more apparent at 45mph and up now ... especially on smooth tarmac roads in the 50-60mph range. Actually I can hear it at almost every speed on smooth tarmac, it gets a bit louder as speed increases. I can drown out the sound if I turn the music up and I'm over 66k miles now.

I jacked all 4 wheels off the ground and checked for play and there is none... I've done a little more research and just because there isn't any play doesn't mean there isn't a potential wheel bearing issue. I still don't know which wheel or where the noise is coming from but my best guess is it's the rear since when I'm turning or going down a curve the noise isn't any worse or better...it's just there.

I've never done a wheel bearing job, but it doesn't seem too difficult if I can replace the whole wheel hub assembly instead of the pressing out type of wheel bearing. I'm assuming our 2014 Foresters have wheel hub assemblies which include the wheel bearings, which would make replacement easier....versus pressing out wheel bearings (much harder) that I've seen on other make cars.

Similar to the 2013 Forester Rear hub assembly: See Here for 2013 Forester Rear Hub Assembly

Heres a video of what I think is my wheel bearing going out:

Thoughts?

 

Yes, I think you will find a rear wheel bearing gone and believe there is a time bomb awaiting a lot of Foresters soon. Both of my rears were howling like bad tires at 120,000 miles and then progressed into sounding like a twin engine airplane. Buy two Timken bearings (and they are works of art) from RockAuto for about $250/pr., get a 1/2" cold chisel, a ball large ball peen hammer, some Kroil penetrating juice, and split the bearings out of the knuckles. The hard part is separating the dust shield from the bearing (PM me for technique). Once replaced, the silence is deafening......

 

Thanks @Vishnu. Funny I had just ordered a pair of the Timken rear 'wheel hub assembly' for my car before seeing your reply. Figured I might as well do both rear wheel hubs. They arrive next week so I'll be doing the job myself soon... in the meantime Im borrowing my parents car for a 700 mile trip.. sucks. Pretty sure Ill do a write-up or video DIY on this.

 

Did you try switching front tires to the rear?
I had a similar problem in my 2004x which sounded like wheel bearings but turned out to be bad tire.

 

Yes rotating my tires was the first thing I did. No difference as the sound was still there.

 

UPDATE: PROBLEM SOLVED! REAR WHEEL BEARINGS REPLACED

As @ Vishnu mentioned "the silence is deafening!"

I went and bought some non-OEM but quality Made in Japan TIMKEN "Wheel Hub Assemblies" off eBay to replace my existing failing wheel bearing assemblies. Specifically TIMKEN Part#: HA590522

Total cost for two wheel hub assemblies '14FXT: $217 and 4 hrs of my own labor for both rear hubs.
The stealorship wanted $245 for a single OEM wheel hub assembly, and for doing the whole replacement job one wheel would've been about $645. So about $1300 for both sides. Insane. Totally worth it for me to DIY. Not that hard either if you have the right tools.

I actually followed this thread for the '09-'13 Forester as it's mostly the same: http://www.subaruforester.org/vbulletin/f88/rear-wheel-hub-bearing-replacement-diy-125748/

But a few differences in how I did it:
1) I only took 2 bolts off to take brake caliper off, and hung it off the suspension coil with a zip tie to get it out of the way

2) To take brake rotor off, I borrowed the bolt holding the brake line in place since it's right there, then I put it into the screw hole of the brake rotor and it comes off like butter, no banging necessary. Immediately put back the brake line bolt back afterwards.

3) So, I had already removed the axel/spindle nut as soon as I got the tire off with my air gun, even before removing brake calipers. However, before removing the 4 bolts in the back holding in the hub assembly, I put the axel nut back on slightly to make it flush with the axel spindle and grabbed a 1x2 piece of wood about 1ft long I had lying around and knocked the other end of the 1x2 into the axel/spindle with a hammer to push back the axel/spindle maybe .5 inch to 1 inch and loosen it up for easier removal. After I noticed the spindle move back, I took the axel nut off, removed the 4 back bolts, and slowly pried around with a flat head until the hub assembly came off. I did not force anything to make it come off, I slowly did this as to not damage anything especially the backing plate and ebrake assembly. This way I didn't have to use the 3-arm puller or anything fancy.

4) I also did 177lb.ft torque for the axel nut after completion.

5) hardest part is aligning the the backing plate and new wheel hub assembly to the knuckle to put the 4 bolts back in. You'll just have to man handle it to put back the 4 bolts.

I would've hated to remove axel nut with a breaker bar. I have a small dewalt 20v electric impact gun and it wasn't enough to budge the axel nut. Fortunately my dad had a air compressor and pneumatic impact gun to remove the 32mm axel/spindle nut. Made the job so much easier.

Anyone attempting this should really take note of the ABS sensor and carefully remove that first.

That's it really. After getting both the old wheel hub assemblies out, I think both were bad.. but the driver side rear I can definitely feel a grinding as I spin it by hand. Passenger rear felt okay, but it physically didn't look too good. There was NO PLAY in them if doing the standard 12 and 6, or 9 and 3 o'clock shake test. Glad I did both, saved myself a ton of money, car is QUIET again, and was an interesting job as I've never done this before myself. I'm still wondering why my rear bearings went out so quickly at 66k miles. I rarely offroad, and do a ton of highway miles..maybe that's why. Either way I'm happy now that it's fixed the hum/drone/whirring was driving me crazy.

UPDATE: TIMKEN wheel hub assembly bearings failed after less than 30k miles (not sure if it had anythign to do with buying off eBay). Anyway, I replaced, again, with MOOG hub assemblies and hoping they'll last much longer... and they have a 3 year warranty from advanced auto parts. I've since put on about 4k miles, everything ok for now.

 

Took me about 3 hours to change the passenger side rear hub, from starting to jack up my car to cleaning all my tools and a quick test drive.

Strangely my biggest trouble was with the axle nut where the little tab was chiseled in. It was hammered in all the way, and I broke 2 screw driver tips trying to pry it out.

2) To take brake rotor off, I borrowed the bolt holding the brake line in place since it's right there, then I put it into the screw hole of the brake rotor and it comes off like butter, no banging necessary.

3) I put the axel nut back on slightly to make it flush with the axel spindle and grabbed a 1x2 piece of wood about 1ft long I had lying around and knocked the other end of the 1x2 into the axel/spindle with a hammer to push back the axel/spindle maybe .5 inch to 1 inch and loosen it up for easier removal.

I would've hated to remove axel nut with a breaker bar.

Big thanks to dukdude, those tips probably saved me a good 20-30 minutes of messing about. I was able to get the axle nut off using a breaker bar fairly easily, I just pulled the e-brake all the way.

Even though my car has only seen 1 or 2 days of snow in the past 5 years, somehow the back side of hub was still rusted together with backing plate. After I removed both together off the knuckle, it took a good bit of hammering to get the hub off backing plate. So do expect a rusty hub even if you live in southern regions.

 

Cool, glad to hear it's fixed and the job was done right since you did it yourself!
Thanks for the write-up. If the fronts ever go, it'll be a piece of cake for you to replace.
I had my front passenger side go, but it was my fault. I was hooning in the snow and I hit a curb (a snow covered curb)
Funny, right after it happened I remember reading a post on this forum and the OP mentioned the word "subris", a witty replacement of the word "hubris" for those of us that think our Subaru AWD can get us out of anything... lesson learned.

 

I'm hoping the fronts will last a lot longer! I'm pretty careful trying not to hit potholes etc but I guess hitting things covered by snow is always a possibility haha.

I actually got through some slightly flooded areas in my car here in TX with all the crazy rain recently... not recommended at all but yes I do feel a bit too overconfident in the Subaru AWD to get me out of stuff sometimes. Last thing I want is to flood my car out, don't drown.. go around!

 

Is the sound something like an airplane propeller?

 

I describe it as a loud "droning" or "humming" sound.

 

Just had the front left bearing go bad in my '15 2.5i Premium. It was making a pronounced humming noise (like tire noise on pavement), but unlike other cars I've driven with a single bad bearing, it didn't change all that much when I turned. There was obvious play in the driver's side wheel when the car was jacked up.
Got a replacement bearing (MOOG from Rock Auto, not a cheapie generic), installed it yesterday. A bit of a pain getting all the suspension parts detached, but once the knuckle was detached, it wasn't too hard to knock out the hub assembly and replace it. Reassembled, all was well. Both the play and the road noise are gone!
Unfortunately, this replacement resulted in a problem with the Speed Sensor in the same wheel. Mechanic's sensor says there's no signal from that wheel, and all the other wheels are stuck at a 4mph signal. I know I put the sensor back in snugly (verified a few times), and there was no visible damage to the wire or the sensor. Maybe a bad bearing, maybe a different air gap between the sensor and hub ring, or maybe invisible damage to the sensor?

I read that this can happen if there's a bit of rust or dust preventing the sensor from seating exactly the same as it had before, resulting in a different air gap, so I actually pulled the passenger side sensor and replaced it, same as I had on the driver's side. No improvement. For today, I needed to get to work so I'm driving on it and dealing with the slew of speed sensor-associated warning lights.
Has anyone seen something like this before? I'm thinking I'll get another bearing and try re-replacing the one I just did. If the MOOG I just put on is bad, this should fix it. If it doesn't help, I'll try putting one of the new ones on the passenger side to get it symmetrical - maybe there's some difference between new and old that might balance out with two new ones.
Any other thoughts or suggestions? TIA

EDIT with update: Turns out the new hub/bearing (MOOG 513303) that supposedly fits the 2015 Forester DOESN'T ACTUALLY FIT. Same issue with a NAPA PGB PBR930473. It fits well enough to be installed, but the machined ring that slides into the steering knuckle is too short. (Photo showing old and new hubs: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B4omjtbz0P0aZEtqbkF0MjI5aGc ) This means the axle shaft doesn't seat properly, which changes the position of the speed sensor relative to the axle, resulting in lack of signal and a bunch of warning lights. I've contacted RockAuto, MOOG, and NAPA about this issue so they hopefully update their catalogs accordingly.
Since two new aftermarket parts share this problem, I ended up putting the old bearing back in - I'd rather live with the noise of a bad bearing than a slew of warnings and reduced functionality/safety! Also, the speed sensor had apparently been scraping lightly against part of the axle, as it was a little scratched/polished - so I didn't want to continue driving like that and potentially cause damage.
I also realized that the powertrain warranty is still in effect for my car (I thought I was out since I'm past 36k mi), so I have an appointment for the dealer to take care of it next week.
Quite a hassle, but on the plus side, I'm getting pretty familiar with dissembling and re-assembling the wheel/brake/hub!

 

2014 Forester XT here. Front driver side wheel bearing died too. humming noise starting around $45 mph. Dealer replaced it under extended warranty, $100 deductible. I'm starting to regret buying a Subaru. Never been to the dealer so many times for recalls and repairs with my other cars (i.e. Honda, Toyota).

RX Warrior

 

Sorry to hear @RX_Warrior.

Wheel bearings aren't a big deal, but yea compared to toyota and Hondas their wheel bearings rarely fail. After I fixed mine at 66k, everything was OK until 89000 miles when I had a transmission valve body failure. I was way out of warranty (&no extended warranty), but called SOA, told them everything, they sent people to look into my car, and decided to cover the cost of valve body repair (1500$ +) as a goodwill at 89k miles. I'm at 92k now and all is well. Ill be hitting 100k+ miles probably before october '17. I do worry about reliability as my car gets up there in mileage.. my plan is to trade in between 150k to 180k.

While valve body was being repaired I had a 17 outback as a loaner for about 2 weeks and -damn- i really liked it... there's no turbo power but i could see myself getting an outback next. Or prius.. I know lol.