Squeaking Hub Caps
My 2002 Chevrolet Cavalier had squeaking hub caps. It was rather embarrassing, especially in the beginning and end of summer when the carpool and myself tend to travel with the windows down. Getting the vehicle up to 40 km/h is approximately when the squeaking would start. Then I needed to answer the question, “What’s that noise, is something wrong with your car?”.
The problem in my case is not that the hub caps are deformed, but that the little rubber pads along the outer rim of the hub cap have been lost in the natural life of the hub cap.
You can buy new hub caps, but a cheaper solution exists.
Look around your house for plastic adhesives that can set up quickly and can be used for outdoor applications. Caulking is what immediately comes to mind, but I live in a rented condo and don’t have any caulk around since I don’t have any outside repairs to do.
I did have a tube of rubber like substance for shoe repairs called “shoe goo”. It’s a plastic/rubber like adhesive.
Clean the outer edge of the hub cap. You may want to run some sand paper over the outer edge of the hub cap to allow a rough surface for the adhesive to bind to, I didn’t. My hub cap was scraped up enough from the outer edge of the cap rubbing against the wheel rim.
I ended up putting a medium thickness bead of adhesive all around the cap. I think this is a mistake and a waste of the adhesive. In the future I plan to put a dollop of the adhesive on the flat surfaces that used to contain rubber pads. That makes more sense to me.
The idea isn’t to glue your hub cap to your rim, so you’ll have to leave it off your vehicle for a day or two. This lets the adhesive set up and cure. I’m not sure if the heat of the summer will cause the adhesive to fuse between the rim and the hub cap. I wouldn’t use super-glue for this application though. Caulking is probably your best bet, it is easy to peel off and resistant to the weather.
Now install the hubcap back on your vehicle and you should have a nice quite ride again.