Question for the motor heads

[LewisM]

Had to sell my Takahashi to afford some car maintainence, and now a question.

I have had the 2 front wheel bearings go south in a matter of 1 week. First the right, and now after they fixed that yesterday, the left one has gone south - sounds collapsed to me!

These are my second set of front end bearings in a year. Starting to think this car was in a front-end collision before we bought it.

What could make the bearings go south so often? Wife reckons she hit a speed bump 2 weeks ago pretty hard (would be right timing for it).

[Erg]

What kind of car is it Lewis?

Pete

[Nightshift]

Doesnt sound right. Any bump, pothole, collision that might cause damage to wheel bearings will definately have caused much more damage to suspension, if your wheel alignment is not an issue then you need to be looking elsewhere for your answer, how about water intrusion? Far more likely. As Pete said, what kind of car is it? FWD, RWD, AWD? Only on road driving or some beach work as a 4X4 etc, lots of questions.

Cheers, Dennis.

[LewisM]

2003 VW Passat V5 sedan. On road only :)

[Nightshift]

Im not a fan of VW so perhaps not the right person to ask. I would still be looking at water damage, perhaps through poor quality seals, poor fitting (worn seal faces) or even no seals, plenty of Bubba mechanics out there ripping off consumers, the previous installed bearings may have been made of bamboo from China. If you are no mechanic then I would consider trading it on something a little more home grown and easier to work on.......V5 all wheel drive here on the Sunshine coast, I can certainly think of more practical cars to own here. Sorry not much help but you simply dont know the quality of the work or parts being used on the car these days, if its less than 12 months since they were swapped then I'd be taking it back to your mechanic and demanding some answers, especially if you have travelled less than 20k klms on them.

Cheers, Dennis.

[Barrykgerdes]

What sort of bearings are they. Sounds like they have been incorrectly fitted and possibly cheap substitutes. Frontwheel bearings need to properly greased and preloaded. Too much preload will quickly destroy bearings. Without knowing manufacturers specifications it is impossible to give a good diagnosis.

Barry

[rodsmith]

Volkswagon has the strange habbit of changing the size of the inner bearings and keeping it a secret, happened to a friend of mine in a beetle he had new bearings fitted and two weeks later he discovered that his front wheels were wobbling, I had a look and the outer bearings were the right size but O.D of the inners was smaller than the origionals. I would check that the correct bearings were fitted

Regards Rod

[Kunama]

Given where you drive Lewis, I would also suspect water ingress through worn seals. I had a similar problem on my M3 coupe due to the deluges the Sunny Coast cops.

[ZeroID]

Set of wheel bearings gone in one year !!?? Someone has sold you some cheap balls. I'd be tearing lumps out of the mechanic and\or the supplier. Genuine VW parts ? I'll bet not. If they were cheapish and quick to supply when they were fitted then you've been ripped off. VW parts take 6 weeks to get anywhere in the world and cost mega bucks.
Not a VW fan myself, they seem to have more mechanical problems than most, as do most European cars actually. I'll stick to the jap stuff, run forever.

[LewisM]

Mtt, yup, it all started during the cyclonic conditions we had 2 weeks or so ago. Probably is/was the seals.

The prior bearings were FAC German made bearings. NOt VW original, but only a few dollars cheaper.

[Nightshift]

I saw a funny bumper sticker on a Falcon yesterday that made me laugh, it read, "Made with spanners, not chopsticks". :lol:

I didnt post this for any other reason than it was funny, I actually like most Asian made cars, it made me smile.

[LewisM]

Just made a deal with a mate for another car. Keeps options covered :)

[kustard]

I had a Spanish Built Holden Barina that had a similar issue in one of the back wheel bearings. I was pretty much getting the service department to replace the bearings every 6 months for about 2 years. At one point I had to get them to do it in an emergency as the back wheel got so hot there were flames and a melted hubcap. It was at this point that I ranted at them for quite a while so they kept the car for three days and finally worked out that at one point in their servicing (Holden) they had put the wrong sized bearings in and it had stuffed up the whole wheel system so that when they went to put new bearings in they would fall out. They replaced the whole back wheel assembly at that point under service warranty (I started talking about the department of fair trading when I heard this) and promptly gave the car to my folks who have never had any issues.

Cheers,
Simon

[FlashDrive]

Might not be ' applicable ' here ...but ... check if any ' thrust ' washers are required here...or had been left out and not fitted.

Reason ...similar experience years ago while I was doing a 100'hrly inspection on a BeechCraft A36 Aircraft ....I found the ' thrust ' washers missing from both main wheels ... and on inspection of the bearings ( tapered roller ) .... found ' chattering ' had occurred to the surface of these bearings..... should have had the ' thrust ' washer up against them and correct ' pre-loading ' applied.....but ....without them ...allowed ' sloppiness ' to occur and bearings had too much play .....poor maintenance by previous mechanics..... the bearings had to be replaced and new ' thrust ' washers installed.

If they had been left that way for too much longer ...they would have ' chewed ' themselves to pieces and destroyed the stub axles....and the repair bill ...much more expensive ..!!

Flash ..!!

[torana68]

replaced the wheel bearings (all) on my HQ Holden in 1988, my Merc , as far as I know, is still on its original bearings (1981) , one other car has had issues with no brand chinese bearings - do not fit these things to anything, no brand name = rubbish (it should be stamped on the bearing edge). One of these lasted 6 months before the bearing cage broke destroying the bearing, supplier couldnt care less.

[louie_the_fly]

The problem with a lot of modern cars, and other equipment for that matter, is there are certain things that need to be done by an authorised (& therefore appropriately trained) service centre. A lot of information doesn't get out to mainstream repairers and they often just take a best guess based on what they've done in the past. What worked on a 1966 beetle wheel bearing isn't going to work on a 2009 Passat. I'd talk to a dealer & a bearing specialist. I'd assume you have a CBC bearings in your area somewhere. I've always found them to offer good technical advice.

Lewis, I suppose you don't have the bearings that were replaced. But if you do, send me some closeup pics and I'll most likely be able to determine the cause of the failure.

[ourkind]

I've owned Beatles, Karman Ghia's, BMW's, Saab (don't ask) and now a Merc. They all work/worked just fine.

European Cars for me, I wouldn't have it any other way.

[LewisM]

Same Carlos. Been trouble free apart from this, and it's at 250,000 now.

Wife now admits she hit a speed bump at Uni hard in the rain, so that may have cracked the ceramic orplastic shims, and let water in. Odd both go simultaneously.

[LewisM]

Remembering back, LAST time the bearing went (left side) was when I hit a MASSIVE pothole after the QLD floods a year ago. Buggered the Pirelli completely. I had BOTH front bearings replaced, as I wanted them at equal km's.

[Barrykgerdes]

Interesting the problems that people have with wheel bearings. I have been driving for over 60 years and only twice had problems with wheel bearings. The first was in a 1935 Oldsmobile that I used in 1953 that had much underated ball races in the front. and the second was in a Standard 8 1954 model that I span on a wet road and bent a stub axle on the kurb.

Since then I have had many cars, all covering over 150000K and never even bothered to adjust or grease the wheel bearings. I spent my early years working in the motor trade doing just about every mecanical repair from suspensions, clutches, Gearboxes, Diffs, Re-rings and even rebored and sleeved an engine in the back yard. I gave up working on cars in 1974 (too dirty), electonics was much more fun, cleaner and paid better.

Barry

[Baddad]

Back in the early 70's The Army purchased Land-Rover wheel bearings from a source other than the usual supplier.
Premature bearing failures led to an investigation.
The finding was that the ball metal was softer than what was supplied from the earlier established supplier.

I had the opportunity to speak with one of the engineers who took part in the investigation.

Just goes to show that sometimes inferior quality parts are a part of the market.

Cheers:)

[LewisM]

Just got the car back. I asked to have the old bearings.

Matt's and my suspicion held true - water ingress through a cracked spacer/shim (plastic) on each side, likely caused by wife hitting speed bump hard,in the rain (and the rain deluge that followed after that).

Right side was JUST starting to go, left side had collapsed - it's in several pieces. These are FAC bearings - top quality German ones.I kept the collapsed one to try to get a warranty refund, as it is STILL KM/Time covered.

Replaced with Queensland Bearings, made here in QLD. They better be good :)

Ah well, at least now I have a handful of hardened ball bearings to shanghai...errr... disregard last :D