Hello all,
I have a 97 ford explorer awd with 130,000 miles on it, new brakes/tires and about two months ago it started making this whining/grinding noise from the front end more on the drivers side.
I had one mechanic tell me that it was the front drivers side axle, but I replaced it and nothing. Now I have another mechanic telling me that it is the front wheel bearings. Also, there is another mechanic that is telling me that it is the awd and he recommends disconnecting the awd and just using the rear 2 wheels from now on.
Also, the last mechanic told me that because the front 2 tires are a different brand that it has caused parts on the front end to wear out quicker because he said awd vehicles must have all four tires be the same brand and changed at the same time since they are all pulling at the same time.
Before I stick another dime into my explorer can someone shed some light on what they think might be the problem?
Thanks

 

All I can tell you from what you listed here is go find someone you know and trust to evaluate the problem. Different brand tires...give me a brake. The only possible thread of truth to that scenario is different manufactures specs are different and the same advertised tire size, by numbers, could be a different actual diameter. This would be bad with a 4WD car. But you do have a coupling between the front and rear differentials to vary the front/rear speeds so even that slight tire size variation would have minimal to no impact.

You say you hear a noise...have to be there to try and figure it out. That is a little vague for a chat room discussion.

 

I know it is a bit vague, but the noise sounds like a truck with large knobby tires, and the faster you go the louder the sound gets. Our explorer just has regular all season tires on it.
I had new tires put on the front a few weeks ago, and when they took it off the lift and I drove it away the sound was gone for a day or so. So just by lifting the explorer up and taking the weight off the front end and then lowering it back down changed something for a short period.

 

OK. Got a floor jack in the garage? Try the experiment again. Anyways, this is the type of cause/effect data we need to help you.

 

Thanks... I had a mechanic friend of my wifes take a look at it today and he said the front end is shot. He took the cover off, and said the gears are very noisy. He disconnected the front drive shaft and now it is nice and quiet again.
He also said that because I had different tires on the front than I did on the back that the difference between the front and back tires was pushing on the front end until the gears wore out.

Hope this helps someone else who has an awd with different make of tires on the front than the back.

 

Were the tires the same size, ie 245 x 70 - 16?

 

Yes they were, just different brands. The front are GoodYear tires and the rear are Michelin tires.

 

Well you ended up with some issues for sure but again it's not the brand of tire that did anything. Like I said, they might say the same size but be built to different specs and sizes. That's more than likely what killed you. My Durango is AWD and I have religiously rotated the tires each oil change. Now it has 50K and I'm shopping for new tires. The current ones are so evenly worn, there's no telling where they were ever located. So keep the tire rotations in mind once you get it all sorted out.

 

I really appreciate all the advice. Thanks!!!!