Bad wheel bearing cause of harsh shake?

Background, feel free to read, sorry if I'm just ranting:
So as of about a week ago I noticed a popping sound coming from the front left while turning my wheel even when stopped. Looked it up and it sounded from the location and the fact that I felt no different driving my car that it was the strut bearing. Waiting for warmer weather, yesterday it started to rattle bad while going over bumps on the road and I figured that either the bearing was pretty much gone or my shock broke. Again, driving at all speeds there was no difference to the driving of my car. I felt nothing in the pedals, not weird vibrations at any speed, nothing in my steering wheel. I didn't have time so I took it to a local place that I've heard another guy likes to take his TDI, they were able to get the struts today and get them in this afternoon. I go to pick it up, and they said that the mechanic wasn't happy with the test drive and there was a bad shake after 20mph so I came back a couple hours later at closing. Well, after checking everything over again, they found out I had a bent hub, said that they put it up on the hoist and did a run-out test and found that it was off. I asked them how in the world I could bring in a car that drove just fine at 70mph with a bad strut and not notice this and they just told me that there's nothing they could've done.

Ok so issue: I get a bad shake starting at about 20mph and it definitely speeds up with speed, and while it "deadens" when I let off the accelerator, it does not go away. It's hard to explain, but it's sorta like a side to side shake, like I can feel my right leg hit my center console over and over. So I bought a hub tonight and I'll be taking it to my Grandpa's tomorrow since I don't really feel like going back to these guys again. Just wondering if anyone thinks it could actually be the bearing, I've honestly never heard of that before. I've tried a lot of searching this forum, google, etc and I can't seem to find anyone with a shake like this that ended up being a hub. A few people had bent rims, but that was the closest I saw.

Side not, I mentioned to the guy it's too bad we didn't know when the hub was away from the CV Shaft since that'd be easier, and he said that they didn't have to take the CV shaft out to replace the strut. Everywhere I've read/watched earlier this week has shown having to remove the CV shaft from the hub and pull the hub forward in order to pull it down off the strut. So is the guy completely lying to me or is there another way? I figure I'll know tomorrow when I take the hub off.

Sorry for the rant and I appreciate any stories on similar symptoms on things to check. I'll reply back with what I find tomorrow.

The hub and bearing are an assembly on that car, held in with four bolts, just FYI.

Wheel the bearings go bad, there is a growl noise, that build with road speed, and will change pitch if you swerve side to side. Eventually, they can get play in them, but it takes a while of driving with some real ear bleeding noise before it gets to that.

I take the whole strut and carrier assembly loose (so yes, the CV shaft does come out) when I do struts, because it makes it easier. But if you wanted to do it the hard way, you can leave it in place, you'd just be fighting it the whole time since that car has a strut that slides down into the carrier (like a tube socket), and not two bolts and a clamp type mounting like some other cars.

I would also want to make sure your CV shaft is true. No idea what happened to make this issue happen for you, I suspect one heck of a pothole or smacking a curb or something, no idea, but it does take some force to do this. I'd check the wheels for damage too. Those bend easily, I see those here all the time.

Your popping while turning could also be the subframe shifting, or the control arm mountings, or the rack mountings, etc. Sometimes going over each fastener from underneath with a big ratchet/socket by hand can reveal a problem.

I will second the possibility of a bent rim based on your description.

Have you also checked that the spring is not broken? VW springs do break. Could anyone change a strut and not notice a broken spring? The racer types with Mk 5 and 6's replace the hubs with Passat units because apparently they bend when hitting curbs at speed on a racetrack, so a bent hub is not out of the question. A bent hub will throw the alignment out but I don't see how it could cause a vibration.

Thanks for the thoughts.

Well so far I tore apart the drivers side today, took the hub out and the CV Shaft. All looked ok, there was a little grinding in the hub, so I decided to just replace it since I had it apart. It also had quite the flat spot on the outside where it looks like someone really wailed on it with a hammer...no idea.

Anyways, got it back together and it's still there. I had someone ride with me and I feel like an idiot taking this shop's advice since the shake is clearly coming from the passenger side. It was too late to tear into that side, but we did take off that tire and saw that there's adhesive for a glue on balance weight, but no weight. So there's a possibility that's all it is. We did rotate that tire to the rear and it seemed like there was a small difference so I'm going to start there for kicks. On my way home though I did notice that it really seems worse while the car is under load...it's always there, but it intensifies under load. It's also really worse from 25mph - 50mph. After 50 you can notice it if you pay attention, otherwise it's very minimal. I'm thinking if the tire balance does nothing I may have to tear apart the passenger side and see if maybe that CV shaft has issues.

I'm thinking at some point this thing has been redone (the passenger side) since it has an all black (looks new) hex axle bolt, whereas my drivers side had the original 12pt bolt that was a bear to remove.

Side question that I haven't searched for yet...They broke the break pad sensor connector (the on the car side unfortunately). I still plan to go yell at them about it, just wondering what that'd entail to replace, like can I get that end and solder, shrink wrap it on, or should I try and repair the one I have and wrap it with electrical tape?

PS: The tire shop I'm taking it to, I'll have them look for bent rims while their at it since you guys and a whole bunch of others on the forum seem to say this, just seem so strange to me since I've never heard of that with aluminum rims.

Thanks again!

So I took it to a second shop and they replaced my passenger CV shaft, the inner joint was loose. My car still had a vibration, they put it back on the hoist and my inner join on the driver's side was hoping as well on the lift while they accelerated. They're replacing that now, so my question is, I'm guessing that while the first shop didn't disconnect the cv shaft from the hub when replacing my struts, they must have pulled my cv shafts out and messed up my inner joints.

PS: They did say that my rims looked fine and tires looked fine on them.

Any opinions on if this is what could've happened?
Thanks!

Oh dear...

Say no to Chaxles.

You cannot properly load/test/watch a CV shaft while the car is suspended. The geometry is not the same as when the car is on the ground.

If they yanked the inner joint out, which it sounds like they did, beyond its normal range of operation when they did your struts, that could absolutely cause an issue.

It really sounds like you need to find a better shop.

"They did say that my rims looked fine and tires looked fine on them."




The allowable axial or radial runout for a rim is 1mm. They saw that by eye?

I don't know what a "Chaxle" is, but I'd love to be educated . The shop I took it to 2nd has been the one doing the work now and I've liked them better and taken my stuff there in the past. At this point that show has replaced both CV shafts for free since it still hasn't taken care of the issue, however the passenger side was out enough that you could watch it jump while running the car suspended.

They agreed with me that if they did the struts without removing the CV axel there's a really good change they yanked the inner joint out on the passenger if not the drivers side as well. I did show them the driver's side hub that I replaced, and the mechanic wondered if the first shop beat on it to get the steering knuckle to come off of the strut, since they tried to do it all while on the car, it definitely looks possible.

They also put a good used set of tires on the front (for free) and balanced and still nothing. They did say that they looked at the rim while it was spinning on the balancer, not sure they have any other way to look at it since I specifically asked for them to check for a bent rim.

Right now I'm down to the same shake feeling, but only from 25-40. It's still weird that it seems way worse when accelerating. Definitely noticable while I set my cruse around 25-35, but if I give it gas at 25, it really shakes to 35.

So at this point here's the run down:
I had a popping noise I'm pretty sure was either a strut bearing or a broken spring on my driver's side. My car drove and rode perfectly, there were no changes.

1st shop replaced both struts and stabilizer links. They told me that they did not remove the CV axle from the steering knuckle. When taking it out for a test drive, this shake was there. They did a runout on the driver's side hub and said it was off.

I bought that hub and installed in the next day and it made 0 difference. I had the CV Shaft off of that side at that time, and it seemed fine. I did notice the huge dent and hammered section of the hub I replaced.

I wanted a second opinion and didn't have time this week so I took it to the shop that normally replaces my vehicles suspension parts as well as does my alignments. After feeling the excess wobble at acceleration and seeing the inner join hop while suspended and running they replaced the CV Shaft on the passenger side. This maybe have helped a little, but it was still really bad.

Today they took the driver's side apart and the mechanic saw what I did, that the CV Shaft on that side also looked fine, but since they ordered one just in case they installed that as well, the shake was still there.

They then decided to replace the front 2 tires with some good used ones, rebalanced and put them on...still nothing.

Tonight I brought it home and took the passenger side down to the hub so that I could see if that one had been hammered on as well, and it hadn't been. The first shop did tell me that side went easier, 1 hour vs 3.

At this point I'm at a real loss as to what it could be. As far as the bent rim goes, I did rotate my tires front to rear after the hub replacement did nothing, and that also didn't make the wobble appear to move at all.

The motor and tranny seem smooth. I did try manually shifting from 2nd/3rd/4th/5th at 35mph and they all had the issue. It's just weird to me that it's definitely worse when accelerating. It doesn't get worse when I apply the brakes at any speed, so I don't think it's the rotors (but I never have). I'm really at a loss and so is the second shop I took it to who's had 2 guys on it basically half the day today.

Chaxle = Cheap Chinese axle. They are junk. Often right out of the box. Your car needs OEM (GKN-Lobro) axles in it. Period.

So my car went to a 3rd shop and it's back now working normally, though the shop owner has no idea why so I thought I'd throw out his ideas here and see if anyone can think of something since it's still a mystery.

After doing a lot of looking and test driving and feeling the same thing I was feeling, the owner and another of his mechanics felt like it had to be drive line somewhere. I've already rotated the tireds in every possible way to rule out a rim or tire problem. At this point everything had been replaced, albeit with cheap aftermarket axles...I really wish I knew what i was dealing with there and just rebuilt the ones I had. I guess you live and learn and in few thousand miles it sounds like I'll be buying some GKN ones when these die.

However, the only thing this mechanic could find was the fact that the driver's side CV shaft "could" be the wrong part but he wasn't sure. He decided to order a shaft for that side and see. Well they took that side off and compared it to the one they got and they were the same...however he said the one they took off felt a little grainy almost on the inner shaft when it was compressed all the way compared to the new one they got. (I haven't felt it yet since I picked the car up after hours last night and just talked to him on the phone yesterday.) Anywho, so they put it in and took it for a drive, problem was still there, however he said he was out for maybe 10 minutes still trying to diagnose the issue when he hit some pavement that was icier than he thought and the traction control kicked in. After that time it never happened again, no matter what he did. Confused he went back to the shop and thought maybe something needed to warm up...so he took it out the next morning at 3 deg F and it was smooth as could be, not a single wobble. Still baffled he called me and told me all of this yesterday morning. He did noticed that I had just replaced the battery. It full on died and froze on me 4 days before getting my shocks done, and he was wondering if maybe the transmission was in some sort of relearn mode. I don't think so from that since it drove fine for 4 days leading up to the first time it was touched after replacing the batter. However I do know that the first stupid shop who did my struts had issues with warning lights and used their system to try and reset mine...so maybe that could've reset something?
He has no idea and neither do I...so I'm just throwing this out here in case anyone has any thoughts as to what might have solved it.