First of all, lets not belittle anyone here. We are here to help out our fellow forum member and to help keep FMJ's on the road.
On October 11, 2016 – which was about 15 months after I purchased my wagon, I was dropping my twins off at Elementary school. As I was pulling out of the school driveway and on my way home, I heard a crunch noise, then a grinding along with a loose steering wheel. The R/F outer wheel bearing came apart just like this example. The car only had 36k miles on it at the time and sense I was less than a mile from home, I drove home (slow and careful).
I was going to make a forum post about it, at the time, with lots of pictures. Sense that time, I don't know what happened to all of my pictures (can't find 'em) but did find a Word Document I had started for my forum post (in blue):
"I just got the inner wheel bearing removed from the spindle, using a puller. The spindle shows no sign of discoloration but does have some light scoring to the outer bearing surface (on spindle).
Spindles are heat treated from factory and I believe if a spindle got hot enough to turn blue or black, then the heat treating might no longer be present (no facts to back this up). Spindles are too important for me to trust a “discolored from heat”, issue.
I think some light filing may take care of the roughness to inner bearing spindle surface. The inner bearing (the large one) is one that takes most of the vehicle weight – so I think I will be fine.
Now to get some parts.
Note: I generally only see these type of failures with “cheap” bearings or cars that are WAY WAY WAY past normal maintenance.
Brake pads last roughly 30k miles on our cars. It is important to remove brake rotors to surface for new brake pads, and to clean, inspect and re-pack the wheel bearings at same time. Also, doing so, will remove any errant iron shavings produced by machining the brake rotors.
If a person does that, then these wheel bearings will last forever.
This bearing had mostly enough grease in it to last 30k miles and grease appears to have been replaced a few thousand miles ago – so not exactly sure what failure is from. It might just a cheap bearing?
Note: front wheel bearings should slide freely on the spindle. They shouldn't be loose or require effort to push/pull into place."
Now I did file the outer wheel bearing surface down on my spindle – but it was too deeply scored to salvage – so I had to get replacement spindle (used) to fix my car with.
The bad thing is I had taken about 40 pictures showing what I did – and not sure what happened to those pictures.
While working on car at same time, I found the other side of car, the upper ball joint was way loose, so fixed it as well.
I don't think maintenance had anything to do with my bearing failure. I don't remember who made the bearing (I took a picture of it, but can't remember) – so I suspect a cheap bearing is what failed. I have always said, when it comes to bearings – you get what you pay for.
I did replace the brake rotor, both bearings (Timken), seal and spindle. I also replaced the upper ball joint on other side of car – but that was unrelated.
BudW
On October 11, 2016 – which was about 15 months after I purchased my wagon, I was dropping my twins off at Elementary school. As I was pulling out of the school driveway and on my way home, I heard a crunch noise, then a grinding along with a loose steering wheel. The R/F outer wheel bearing came apart just like this example. The car only had 36k miles on it at the time and sense I was less than a mile from home, I drove home (slow and careful).
I was going to make a forum post about it, at the time, with lots of pictures. Sense that time, I don't know what happened to all of my pictures (can't find 'em) but did find a Word Document I had started for my forum post (in blue):
"I just got the inner wheel bearing removed from the spindle, using a puller. The spindle shows no sign of discoloration but does have some light scoring to the outer bearing surface (on spindle).
Spindles are heat treated from factory and I believe if a spindle got hot enough to turn blue or black, then the heat treating might no longer be present (no facts to back this up). Spindles are too important for me to trust a “discolored from heat”, issue.
I think some light filing may take care of the roughness to inner bearing spindle surface. The inner bearing (the large one) is one that takes most of the vehicle weight – so I think I will be fine.
Now to get some parts.
Note: I generally only see these type of failures with “cheap” bearings or cars that are WAY WAY WAY past normal maintenance.
Brake pads last roughly 30k miles on our cars. It is important to remove brake rotors to surface for new brake pads, and to clean, inspect and re-pack the wheel bearings at same time. Also, doing so, will remove any errant iron shavings produced by machining the brake rotors.
If a person does that, then these wheel bearings will last forever.
This bearing had mostly enough grease in it to last 30k miles and grease appears to have been replaced a few thousand miles ago – so not exactly sure what failure is from. It might just a cheap bearing?
Note: front wheel bearings should slide freely on the spindle. They shouldn't be loose or require effort to push/pull into place."
Now I did file the outer wheel bearing surface down on my spindle – but it was too deeply scored to salvage – so I had to get replacement spindle (used) to fix my car with.
The bad thing is I had taken about 40 pictures showing what I did – and not sure what happened to those pictures.
While working on car at same time, I found the other side of car, the upper ball joint was way loose, so fixed it as well.
I don't think maintenance had anything to do with my bearing failure. I don't remember who made the bearing (I took a picture of it, but can't remember) – so I suspect a cheap bearing is what failed. I have always said, when it comes to bearings – you get what you pay for.
I did replace the brake rotor, both bearings (Timken), seal and spindle. I also replaced the upper ball joint on other side of car – but that was unrelated.
BudW