I have an 03' Saturn Ion-3 which I love dearly, but it has this strange grinding/road noise whenever I pick up speed, it only has 67k miles on it. I jacked it and shook the tire to check the wheel bearing and it didn't rock, I looked at the boot on the cv joint for cracks but everything looked clean and fine. Tire looked ok, no lumps or nails. I was just wondering if anybody has any experience with this problem and can help me narrow it down. (im on a tight budget and I don't want to replace things until its fixed.) Thanks!

 

how many miles on current tires? Is wear pattern uneven? Have they been regularly rotated?

Try rotating your tires and see if the noise moves with the tire
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Usually a wheel bearing will also be more noise sensitive when turning --you haven't reported this, so wheel bearing is possible but ........

 

Miles on the current tires are unknown. (sorry) the wear is very even on all of the tires. I have not rotated them but I will do that, thanks for the idea. The tires still have a fairly good amount of tread left on them though so they cant have too many miles.

Also, the noise does not change when im making turns, only with my speed, so I don't think it is the bearing. (especially since it has low miles.)

 

I'm more concerned with the actual bearings, rather than the CVCC joint. Having replaced the RF set for a very similar "noise" while on travel with the family, I suspect you may have to do the same. And, the sound only changed with the speed of the vehicle, turning one way or the other had no effect ......

 

That is what I feared, since the tires looked good. luckily, most of these GM vehicles had a very similar design, so a how-to on wheel bearings shouldn't be too hard. Thanks for the replies.