I just drove from minnesota to massachusetts yesterday and now i have a little issue. my car was driving just fine, then i stopped at a rest stop in syracuse to take a nap. after i started driving again i noticed a vibration in the front right wheel that kept getting worse so i stopped at the next rest stop to see what was going on. turns out all four of my lug nuts were way loose on that wheel. i torqued them down before i started the trip so i think maybe someone was trying to steal my wheels until they realized i was actually still in my car sleeping so they just left it.

anyway, i tightened them back up and kept driving. this is where i noticed the problem. when i'm just cruising i get a nasty sound/feel kind of like grinding coming from the same wheel that was loose. it doesn't happen if i have any throttle on or any brake on - only when i'm just coasting. i know it's not a problem with the drivetrain because it does it in neutral as well as when i'm in gear (not that it would really even make sense to be a drivetrain problem, but i thought i'd mention it). i'm thinking i have bad wheel bearing now. any other ideas as to what it could be? how hard/expensive is it to replace a wheel bearing and should i stop driving it alltogether until it's fixed?

 

could of ground away at your hub from being loose. take your wheel off and look at the outer lip of your hub.