Grinding / Vibration from front left..

[Rolley]

Sounds like a hub/bearing to me.
As soon as you spin the wheel up by hand you'll know for sure. Grab the spring and you will feel it vibrating as you spin the wheel.

[hks_kansei]

Wheel bearing.

Mines flocked too.


Front left usually goes before the others since it cops most force (way more right turns on Aussie roads than left)

[greenMachine]

Thanks for the insights. How dangerous is it to drive on short term while I organise a replacement? I don't have a second car..

Depends on what you call 'short term', and how far gone the bearings are. Grinding/vibration are the symptoms of a set of pretty far gone bearings.

Bottom line, the wheel will probably not come off in the case of total catastrophic failure, because it is held on by the brake calliper. Probably. Unless the disk breaks. If you can choose the place/speed/circumstances of this failure then no problem, just keep driving and shut the noise out. But you can't.

Jack the car up. If the wheel has more that a few mm of play when you pull it in/out of the guard, I would get them done very soon, maybe tomorrow, certainly as soon as I could. That is not to say it will fail totally tomorrow, or next week even, but they are well down the slippery slope. My guess is that the deterioration will be accelerating exponentially, so the faster you drive it, the further you drive it, the quicker total collapse will happen.

How is the bus service in your part of town?