brief rubbing sound from wheel area?

[bryanhbre]

to start, my wife's 2001 mercury mountaineer is in need of upper ball joints. I plan on buying a kit off of ebay since i'm pretty well broke at this point. now for the question: it seems that when only taking off from a stop and the wheels are turned at the same time, there is a brief 1 second "rubbing" noise from the wheel area. I just had one of the hub assemblies replaced a few months ago under warranty, but to me the rubbing is still coming from that side. there's no grinding or other noises that I'm aware of. would the rubbing have anything to do with the ball joints? I know there can be play in the wheel when the ball joints are bad but i wouldn't think it would be enough to rub the side of the wheel????

 

[corkey]

look on the inside of the wheel for rub marks,,

another problem could be the brake caliper releasing slowly,, check the caliper too , check the rotor of the brake too

 

[Walnut777]

What corkey said +1
When my lower balljoint went out, my explorer made squeaking sounds like shocks do. Whenever the suspension went up and down, it squeaked. Whenever I turned the wheels left to right, it squeaked.
I called up the Ford place and ask them what the most common thing was and they said lower balljoints. I didn't want to believe my new shocks were causing it. I changed out the lower balljoint, problem solved.

You could pull both wheels off and examine the thickness of the brake pads and see if one side is wearing noticably different than the other.
Drive down the road and when you press the brake let go off the steering wheel and see if it pulls to one side while braking.
***Try this at your own risk! I am not responsible for accidents!***
If it does you an bet that it's a caliper issue 95% off the time.

Keep us posted.