I drove to school, everything was fine, I start to drive home i hear this grinding noise like something is loose and hitting something else. No extra noise when I hit brakes.
My car has 160000 miles.
My car has an automatic transmission.
This may suggest you have wheel bearings going out. A wheel bearing will usually fail due to pitting or small damage on the surface of the rollers or the bearing race. Both the surface of the rollers and the race is precision machined to tight tolerances and highly polished to allow the rollers to pass easily over the race with the addition of bearing grease for lubrication and cooling. Over time the bearing will wear slightly, allowing microscopic pieces of metal into the grease. These microscopic pieces of metal, as well as any contamination that gets into the bearing, will wear away at the highly polished surfaces causing pitting and deformation. Since so much weight is riding on your wheel bearings, and so much load is put on them in corners, even the smallest amount of surface damage to your bearing can cause a lot of noise. I would suggest having a professional from Your Mechanic come to your home to take a look at the car and check your wheel bearings for failure.
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