Hello all, got a 2002 T&C with the 3.3L V6 Flex-Fuel, about 95K miles.
Bought it with 15" cheap steel wheels/tires.

Just got a good used set of 16" factory alloy wheels (came off a 2000 T&C) and Toyo Eclipse tires. Swapped them on at the seller's house and he's getting rid of the steelies for me.

Now I get a pretty loud noise in the front left wheel. Can't quite tell if it's something grinding or something rattling. Goes away if I turn the wheel right. Comes back if I straighten out. Gets louder if I turn left. Stepping on the brake changes it and even lessens it but doesn't make it go away. While braking the noise pulses in time with wheel revolutions.

I jacked it up and put it in neutral and can reproduce it in the driveway. Silent with the wheel turned right, there while straight, louder when left. But if I take the wheel off, it goes away. Put it back on with the lugs snug and it's still gone. Sock them down and it comes back.

Something in the brakes? The bearings? Why would either pop up only with the new wheels?

Hope to hear from you,

Randini

 

The moral of this story is "take a second look before you go screaming for help on the forums."

(Funny, "RTFM" is usually the moral of my many troubleshooting dilemmas.)

Instead of having done something weird and sinister to my brakes or bearings, it turned out to be the most obvious thing. The new wheels have less clearance to the brake caliper and a few of the wheel spokes were JUST hitting one end of the anti-rattle clip on the caliper. I could have left it and everything would have eventually ground itself clear, but that felt like bad form (and annoying to my wife). Instead I pulled the clip, gave that end the tiniest of bends, ground about a hundredth of an inch off the back of it, and put it back in with the end pushed to the back of its travel. Any of those three things probably would have been sufficient, actually.

Good times...

Randini