Yep, that warranty ship has sailed!

 

I got the $110 ($70 with online discount) hub from Advance. The left hub had started to make a growling/whirring sound at about 25mph and up. 70 mile drive to the store to get it. It was cold, and nasty weather so I took it to a repair shop for the work. They have the tools to remove salt belt stubborn parts.

200 miles or so later the ABS light came on.

Ordered a hub from amautoparts. $47.90 delivered to my house.

250 miles later the ABS light went out.

50 miles later it came back on.

Tomorrow it will be near 30 degrees, and my wife will not need the car for a few days, so I will replace it myself this time.

First one will go back to Advance for a replacement to save as a spare. Left went, right can't be far behind.

 

The ABS light does NOT mean the hub is necessarily bad. Probably not on a new one, more likely the connector is dirty. A good code reader could tell you what the actual problem is.

 

Thanks, I will double check that before I take it all apart. I did pull the wheel off last week to get a good look at the condition of the wiring, but I did not take the connection apart. I figured the shop would have cleaned any dirty stuff, but maybe not.

I did take it back to the shop for a quick check with their code reader to determine which wheel the code was coming from.

 

Possible swing and a miss.

When my wife got home last night she said the ABS light went out again.

Today I looked at the connector, and wiring.

All looked clean, and in good condition.

I went ahead and swapped out the hub and bearing just to have that possibility out of the way.

After installing the new one, the ABS light was on. I went for a short drive, and the light went out in a few hundred feet.

We won't be doing any driving for a few days. I will post back after a few drives with the results. I don't think that I have located the problem. Just odd that it showed up shortly after the hub change.

 

As Donbrew suggested - "A good code reader could tell you what the actual problem is.".

Without getting the code downloaded you are shooting in the dark at the problem.

 

OK. If memory serves we right, I recall a thread from way back. Something to do with an ABS light and cold weather. Can't recall all the particulars of that thread but it seems it was related to brake fluid level and/or old fluid with moisture content ?

Anyhow. You might want to check the brake fluid level. Or maybe even have the fluid tested.

If this has nothing to do with your's, I apologize. Just throwing out my thoughts.

But as whopper said above. Get the codes read.

 

Ice build up in the reluctor ring. Brake fluid level can have an impact. Bad contacts on the connectors can have an impact. Dirt on the ring can have an impact.

An ABS reader can tell 1.) which wheel
A.) bad signal and/or B.) bad ground.
and maybe some other things.

My particular problem turned out to be a bad battery, the cheap hubs evidently cannot stand a lower voltage than they expect. It was only holding 12.2V, and as we all should know it takes a certain voltage to "run" the alternator.

 

750 miles. ABS light remains out. Defective hub will go back it Advance.

 

Sorry for the delay, but quick update. Changed the bearings and it solved the noise problem (as suspected). I took it to my friends shop, rather than doing it in my driveway (cold and snow) and I was glad I did. I worked with him on it, and saw that while in theory it is very simple-just a few bolts-he had a hard time pulling off the old hubs. One side, not to bad (used a slap-hammer tool). But the passenger side-not so easy. And since I didn't own that tool, I don't know if I could have hammered it off myself. A puller would have probably worked, though.

Also replaced the sway bar bushings with the correct size poly from Energy Suspension. The ones listed on this forum were actually one size too large for my 2006 sway bar. Only 4 bolts, but the rear 2 are tricky to reach. Had to get them from the engine compartment with a very long extension.

Finally, did quick repair on 2 dings, one on each side of the front fender. (In September, some careless driver hit the drivers side in a parking lot, then the next day a shopping cart rolled into the other side) The scarey thing, though, was once I pulled off the inner fenders, my buddy was able to pop out the dents with his fingers. Awfully thin sheet metal on these HHR's. Not like the good old days of solid American steel.