When my 98 Accord is cold, I get a loud hum from the front (possibly from the right) if I turn right or left. Once the front wheels are straight, it goes away. If I drive the car for 15-20 minutes or more, the noise goes away: now if I do loops in a parking lot, the noise isn't there.

So my question is: is it possible that the (right) CV joint is going? I had to change right strut, strut mount and right wheel bearing on this car (after I bought it used recently).

The other question: should I worry about this or just live w/ it and wait until whatever makes the noise fails?

 

Recheck the torque on all the fasteners you touched. I would even unstake, loosen, and re-torque the front stub axle nut to make sure it was properly torqued.

 

It wasn't me who did the strut & wheel bearing jobs; I got it done in a professional shop (and paid good money for it). I don't have a garage (I rent in a highrise) and I don't have a torque wrench either.

 

Then bring it back to the shop and tell them that there is noise coming form the side they worked on and ask to have them recheck the torque specs and work done on the car by a different technician.

 

OK, thanks.

 

So I went back to the shop and asked them to re-torque the front right spindle nut (which is the same as front stub axle nut if I understand correctly), which they did.

1) The turning noise is still there on cold car. It still goes away after 15-20 minutes drive.
2) When going straight at city speeds (cold or warm) there's this low pitched humming sound coming from somewhere in the front -- it sounds like a wood wind instrument being gently blown. The pitch doesn't change neither with engine RPM, MT being in any particular gear or neutral, or wheel speed. It's just there over 10-20 km/h and is audible up to 50 km/h. Above that speed the engine/tire/wind sound is louder so I can't say if the hum is still there.
3) There's this flat piece of metal running from back to front on the left of center under the car; there's some kind of pipe on top of it (brake? fuel? something else?) There's a plastic fastener which supposed to hold the pipe to the flat metal below it. The fastener seems to be broken. What is this whole pipe/supporting metal combo?