The Nissan Path

I've been searching quite a bit on this issue, and most solutions seem to point to u-joints. It's an 08 2WD, so that's not an option. Noise is present at ALL speeds under load and without load. It does seem to change on different roads and obviously more pronounced at higher speeds. Also seems to be less pronounced when turned to the left and more pronounced turned to the right.

It sounds like an out of balance tire so I tried the easiest thing and swapped it with the passenger wheel. No change. So that rules out any balance or tire issues.

Even though the wheel feels solid when wiggling, I was leaning towards a bad hub, but I read here a member had success after an alignment, so I thought I'd try that first. Car wasn't much out of spec. Coincidentally, the shop mentioned the vibration as a bad hub as well. I installed a replacement from Rockauto, and no change again.

I purchased a new outer tie rod on a whim, but when I put it up in the air, I decided to just look around. It's hard to really inspect the balljoints without actually removing them, but just based on visual inspection, I'm hesitant to start looking at those or endlinks, etc.

The only part I see with any noticeable wear are the stabilizer bushings. Those are a pretty cheap fix, that wouldn't hurt to get replaced anyway. But I've never seen any indication those might be responsible. So I'm looking for any other ideas before I breakdown and have Nissan take a look. Thanks!

That sounds like the symptoms of either a bad tire or bad hub. Any chance you replaced the wrong wheel bearing hub? BTW, why would a 2wd Pathy make bad U-joints not an option? 2wd Pathys have u-joints, too.

Thanks, appreciate the reply.

When I ride on the passenger side I don't detect the noise like I do when driving, so I naturally assume the issue is on that side. And when I switched wheels the noise did not move to the passenger side either.

Statement regarding u-joints was in reference to not having any front u-joints. It seems weird (to me anyway) issues with the rear driveshaft would impact the front end and only one side.

Might be worth it to check your front struts and strut mounts. My parents had a humming, vibration and clunking in their Mercedes SUV and it turned out to be a bad front strut.

I feel your frustration. There's nothing more annoying than a noise you can't pinpoint and that doesn't seem to have a cause. Keep us posted.

Just to follow up, smj999smj had it right. Made no sense to me, but the bum hub was the passenger side.

I finally had a chance to get it in the air and inspect the u-joints. Everything looked good. For giggles I decided to swap the new replacement hub to the passenger side to see if the source of the noise would switch sides as well.

With the wheel on, you could only faintly hear a bit of grinding, which I passed off as just the rotor, and no play when wiggling. Once the wheel and rotor were off and was able to spin it by hand, it was easy to diagnose as bad.

Thanks for all the suggestions!

Glad you got it figured out! Noises can be a little tricky to pinpoint sometimes as they tend to travel through various parts of the vehicle.