Transmission Carrier Bearing?
 

My 11 HHR has almost 116K on it. The car has a noise that sounds like a bad front hub/bearing. I took it to a good friend to get diagnosed today, and he said the hubs are in good shape (he even took a stethoscope to them). He gave me a diagnosis of a possible bad carrier bearing in the transmission. He says he sees these engine/transmission combos all the time, and last month a Saturn came in with the same issue, and it ended up being the transmission, though that vehicle had 150K on it.

He can put a used transmission in for $1400. Before I take the plunge, is there anything I should be looking for?

Matt

A second opinion, I'm well passed 200,000 miles, it's the hub bearing, change them in pairs!

I have never heard of that in 8 years on this forum.

x2 what they said.

At that mileage, if it actually isn't the hubs, they are likely about to be worn out anyways, so changing them out would be a good idea. If it actually solves the problem after spending the ~$150 on the hubs, you've saved $1250 - if it doesn't solve the problem, well, consider it a maintenance cost.

He said the passenger side had a slight whine, but it wasn't the source of the noise. He was quite sure that the tranny is the issue.

Well maybe, after he replaces the transmission and you still have the noise, he won't charge you the $1,400.00.

The transmission, and engine for that matter, are both very RARE failures for the HHR. The 4T45E Transmission and its Manual sister the Getrag F23 are very stout, and with the NA motor pushing less than 200 pound foot through it, they can literally last forever so long as you change fluid and maintain it. Replace your Hubs.

I would point him to look at the flex pipe as a possibility.

Slight whine; that is a failure. The end play tolerance is .015 inch.

have you tried bumping the trans into neutral when your rolling down the road and still listening for the whine..?? my 2006 HHR/LT with a manual trans(116,00 miles) makes the same whining noise rolling down the road witheither the trans in gear(any gear) or out of gear....front hubs..doing them today.

The thread is several months old, so it's rather unlikely he won't see your suggestion.

It also turns out we weren't given the whole story, as according to previous threads/posts he had replaced both front hubs in 2016, and one of the new hubs had to be replaced again.