Car is 2012 Fusion SE 2.5l automatic.

I am working on a friends car that is vibrating and making a loud noise from front driver side. The vibration can be felt in the steering wheel and brake petal. The noise get faster and louder with speed and matches the vibration feel. The best i can describe the issue is like warped rotor (vibration) and a pad worn to metal only hitting the high side of rotor (noise). Maybe there is a common problem with this car?

This is what i narrow it down too, not engine related, sounds and vibration is there with engine running or not. Put on new rotors and pads since it was time anyways and hoping for a warped rotor but issue continues. When i turn right the car vibration is worst then driving straight (not by much). When i turn left the problem disappears. A continuous left turn is not a good fix in my location.

When i was doing brakes, i checked ball joints, control arms and cv axle with no noticeable issues. I suspect the cv axle but dont have any experience with this part. I look online to find bad cv and said to do full lock slow turn to see if there was clicks but there is none.

Just trying to help a friend and dont want to throw parts at it. I might just have them take it to a shop but know i could do the labor for free if i knew what the issue was... Thanks.

 

Jack the front end up, on both front tires try to move them in both a up/down and left/right motion.
There should be no slackness if all is well, up/down slackness means wheel bearing, left/right means tie rod.

Ive replaced quite a few of wheel bearing on the fusions, easy job, hardest part is getting the lower control arm all joint out the knuckle then back in the knuckle.

 

Yeah no play, i checked that was hoping to find something but noda.. I didnt mention that i also swap the passenger and driver front wheel/tires around for maybe a bent rim hitting on something but issue stayed with the drivers side.

 

Based off what you have said this really really sounds like a wheel bearing, I would replace the wheel bearings, if you dont want to do that then take it to a shop who can diagnose it correctly and be prepared to pay some diag fee.

 

Thanks, its going into shop. I dont want to throw parts at it not knowing. I will report back what they come up with.