I started hearing a squeaky, creaky sound, that is now sounding like a mild grinding sound. My first thought was bad brake pads creating noise from metal on metal. But no, I pulled the road wheel, inspected the pads, regreased the pins, and reinstalled. The noise is still there, when I spin the road wheel, when up in the air. It has a creaky, creaky sound. I now suspect a bad wheel bearing.

 

I did a search on rear wheel bearing replacement. Most of what I read talked about front wheel bearing replacement. So, I came away from the sight confused. From what I could read, the rear bearing needs a puller to remove it from the hub. Did I read and understand that correctly?

 

If I search for a replacement from a wrecking yard, what Subie models and year range would have a rear hub that would fit my 99 Leggie Outback?

 

Thanks for any advise.

Yes, you would need a puller to get the bearing out. If you get a new hub, anything from a 90-99 Legacy and 93-01 and possibly 02-06 Impreza should work. I think the newer Impreza stuff should work, but I'd probably suggest sticking with something closer to your model year.

I had a mechanic, who is a buddy of mine, check out the squeaky, creaky, rear end corner. Using a mechanics stethoscope, he was able to figure out the noise is coming from the parking brake inside the rotor. There is no looseness found when pulling the road wheel left/right, or up/down, so the wheel bearing is still good.

 

The parking brake seems to work okay, but something must be rubbing, or lightly grinding, within the parking brake mechanism to create the noise. I will take the rotor off the next nice day, when I have time off to see what is going on. Anyone ever have trouble with the parking brake like this?

It may just need to be cleaned or adjusted so it's not so tight.

 

When you pull up on the parking brake handle, do you have to pull up a lot or a little amount of "clicks"?