*CAR* Wheel bearing death

[Martay]

Hi,
thought id ask on here as you lot know what your on about

My car seems to have a problem with rear wheel bearings. Really odd, ive not experienced a simmilar problem before.
Since ive owned the car (April / May ish this year) I have had 4 rear wheel bearings, as they keep going.
When i got the car, there was a hint the rear right was slowly going, so i got it replaced. A week later, the new one collapsed while i was doing 70ish on the duelly, spinning the car sideways up the verge. This one was replaced at a different garage. About a month later, the rear left sounded like it was giving up, so got it replaced by the same garage. Now, the rear left sounds like its dying on me again!!! About 50mph theres a really loud droning/rumbling noise from the rear, increasing in loudness with speed, accompanied by a vibration when accelerating. Ive jacked the car up and had a good look around, nothing seems missing/broken. Currently, the rear wheel has a 'clicking' feeling when you grab the tyre and rock the top/bottom of the wheel into the car.
What could be causing this? Just real bad luck? I do alot of miles (1500-2000 per month) but surely they should last longer than this??
Thanks
____________________
Eat well, poo hard
Drives: Cavalier 2.0 16v
Rides: Slightly ratted Honda City Express

[MarJay]

Are you running wheel spacers by any chance?
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Remember kids, bikes aren't like lego. You can't easily take a part from one bike and then fit it to another.

[Martay]

Nope, no spacers. Its got a set of OE alloys, but these problems were occuring before i swapped the steels for the alloys. The wheels are the same size as the steels.
____________________
Eat well, poo hard
Drives: Cavalier 2.0 16v
Rides: Slightly ratted Honda City Express

[stonesie]

Are the garage fitting El-Cheapo no-name bearings?

To be fair even if they are fitting the cheap stuff it should last better than that but next time ask them to fit the better quality stuff.

My car gets SKF bearings, I would rather slam my dick in the door, repeatedly, than fit anything by trupart again... utter toss. It really is get-a-car-through-a-test stuff that will need replacing again next year if not sooner

I had no option but to fit trupart pads once, they were so bad I really would call them dangerous...

Edit just seen your sig, Mk4 fezbomb, It's rare to have rear bearing issues with those... Has it had a smack on the curb? next time the rear drums are off get the garage to check the stub axles are not bent. It takes quite an impact to do this but it's possible.

If that's your problem a replacement rear axle is the best bet, not massively difficult to swap the stubs over.

[Martay]

I understand what your saying, i hope thats the case and not something more serious. Ive been paying ~£50 all in to get it sorted. Parts + Labour.
Will it be a huge amount more for decent parts? I know you 'get what you pay for' but im not paying £300!!
Thanks
____________________
Eat well, poo hard
Drives: Cavalier 2.0 16v
Rides: Slightly ratted Honda City Express

[Raffles]

The cost difference between good quality parts and crap ones is often quite small and I don't understand why people fail to insist on the A1 stuff. Anything else is just false economy.
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A good loser will always be a loser.

[iooi]

I would say you are either driving the car in a way thats killing them... You know masses of handbrake turns or bouncing up and down a lot of kerbs.
Or something is seriously out of line/worn and causing the wheels to be out of line.
Perhaps someone has messed up when changing before and the bearing are not a good fit, so they are moving around in the carrier.

What do the tyres wear like ?

Any chance you can get someone else to drive the car while you follow behind to see if the car crabs or the rears look out of line.

What did the HPI say about the car history. Has it been a write off and not repaired properly. Give the old owner a call and see if they had any problems.
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Just because my bike was A DIVVY, does not mean i am......

[pits]

[MattEMulsion]

If the bearing has failed already then take it back to the garage with a view to getting it done under warranty. I am assuming that it hasn't been in many months at all.

Reasons as to why it is going could include: poor quality bearings, poor fitting of the bearings, the way you drive (do you abuse the car?) and finally are you sure it is not partly down to the wheels that you have stuck on. The size of the wheel is unimportant in this instance, it is OFFSET of the wheel that will put the strain on the bearings, if it is wrong that it will wear them out at an alarming rate.
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Yamaha YZF-R6

[Pete.]

[Teflon-Mike]

As others have said. Top of the list is that the replacement bearings fitted first time were chitpart items. In which case, they could be made of toffee, so replacingthem may have solved it. Unless replacements are also chitpart bits!
As they are 'sealed' bearing with thier own races, its unlikely that a poor fit would cause them to fail. If they didn't fit, they'd flop around and it would be obviouse. More likely is that in previouse bearing failure debris has welded itself to teh stub axle & been ground off to fit new. Not a big problem, BUT if it was in the hub-seal wiper zone.... VERY LIKELY then that will chew the seals, so you loose lube.... and the bearings run dry and fail.....
So top of the list after decent bearings, is the seal... was THAT replaced at the same time as the bearings? (Should have been, as usually cause of failure) Was the stuf 'dressed' causing new seal to prematurely fail?
Fiesta has a tortion bar, trailing arm back axle. A side swipe into a kurb or similar can bend an arm or mnounting. Consequent misalignment can then cause the car to crab, BUT symptom would tend to be uneven tyre wear, before bearing failures, so I think unless the tyres were pretty ropey, I'd be looking at the hubs and stub-axles.
£50 is a pretty low price for an independent to charge for a pair of wheel bearings, likely that its a job they've given the aprentice (its a simple one!) and that they will have used cheapest parts.
This is good, means its a dead simple DIY job for you to do yourself.
Get a Haynes. You'll probably need a big socket or spanner, probably around 22mm for the hub nut, and possibly the borrow of a hub puller, but if the jobs been done recently, you should be able to take the wheel off, undo one big nut and slide the hub off.
Then a xcase of beating the bearings & seal out with a hammer & drift, cleaning everything, fitting new good quality replacements, cleaning & inspecting the stub axle, greasing it all back up and puting it back together. Pre-load on the bearings can be set by hand. You tighten the hub nut up until the hub wont turn, then back it off 1/4 turn at a time until it just spins freely, then tab over the lock washer!
It really isn't a scary job. Probably £30 worth of bearings & seals, and an afternoon with basic tools, and the paynes manual.
IF there is a question mark over the stub axles, then replace.
Obviousely new will be the definitie answer, but they are likely to be expensive. I have no idea how much. Depends on main stealer price structure. Could be anything from perhaps a tenner, up to couple of hundred each, depending! If exhorbitant, procure from a breakers, better ones will inspect & make sure they are OK for you before you buy. Normally bolt to the axle via three or four bolts, only thing you'll need to swap them is a decent breaker bar to take them off and a torque wrench to tighten them back up.
Again, hubs off, shouldn't add more than half an hour to the job.
While muggering about in the back hubs, though, worth inspecting the brakes. Seem to rcall that the Fiesta has a rather wampy self adjusting hand-brake mechanism inside the back-plate, at the bottom where all the brake dust collects. Bit of time cleaning that up can make the hand brake a lot more effective as well as the main brakes, if you bleed them after.
OH forgot!
If the hub-seals have failed, grease on the back-plate is often a clue. If it IS present DEFINITELY check the brakes over, & clean, and its probably worth replacing the shoes, as grease can contaminate the frition material.
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[HD]

How can you tell if a car bearing has failed?
What is crabbing? (guessing where the wheel is out of alignment and the whole car is moving forward and the wheel is going at a different angle?)

Sorry to be a dumbass, but hey, Im still learning
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Rusty '02 Vito Camper + CBR600F3

[Pete.]

No new wheel bearing should fail in a week. My guess is if they weren't poorly fitted then they weren't changed at all, just cleaned & greased to shut them up and the fitter counted on them lasting a little longer than they did.
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a.k.a 'Geri'

132.9mph off and walked away. Gear is good, gear is good, gear is very very good

[Teflon-Mike]

[stonesie]

[pits]

[Martay]

Hi,
many thanks for all the advice. Lots of good stuff to consider.
Trying to respond to all the points:
I dont rag it at all, NO handbrake turns. The fiesta has an intersting (useless) self adjusting handbrake system. You can not physically lock the rear wheels, no matter how hard you yank the lever. Dont get me wrong, i tried it ONCE.

Tyres: Fronts seem to wear the outside edges, rears wear evenly allover. When i bought the car, it had old tyres on so i could see the wear easily. Fiestas tend to have bad camber issues when the front lower arms go, this would show on the tyres. I have obviously put decent tyres on now.

Wheels : Il put my steels back on and see if it helps. These problems were occuring before the alloys were put on.

It was deffinatly a new bearing, as i asked to have the old one, in a hope i could see why they're going so quick.
The car doesnt crab. Although whyen i removed the rear seats (to clean, not stripped out) there was little cubes of broken glass under the seats + carpet. I have had the car looked at (when i had the 3rd bearing done) and the garage said nothing is wrong underneith, so im assuming its been broken in to.

I will look into getting a laser alignment done.

Im not confident on doing the bearing myself. Not that i dont think im capable, but after seeing, and being part of a bearing collapsing at speed, i know how badly things go when they go. Id rather get someone 100% confident in a workshop to do it, rather than me on my drive. I have all the tools, but no.

I jacked the car up tonight and checked each wheel. It is deffinatly the rear left wheel, it clicks and moves.
____________________
Eat well, poo hard
Drives: Cavalier 2.0 16v
Rides: Slightly ratted Honda City Express

[Martay]

Ive taken it to 2 different garages now.

The one that collapsed ive still got. The other one that went, but didnt collapse i threw away :/
Want pics?
____________________
Eat well, poo hard
Drives: Cavalier 2.0 16v
Rides: Slightly ratted Honda City Express

[Martay]

https://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk125/MartayP/P110510_16280001.jpg
^grease run down wheel^

https://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk125/MartayP/P110510_08490002.jpg

https://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk125/MartayP/P110510_16270002.jpg

https://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk125/MartayP/P110510_16270001.jpg
^you can just make out melted/worn out rollers in there ^

Tyres that came off front when i bought the car.
https://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk125/MartayP/P170410_20260001.jpg
https://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk125/MartayP/P170410_20270001.jpg
____________________
Eat well, poo hard
Drives: Cavalier 2.0 16v
Rides: Slightly ratted Honda City Express

[jimspeed]

a bearing that broken WILL have damaged the stub axle too as it has tried to seize tio it, if the stub axle is damaged in any way it needs replacing as it will just casue the next bearing to fail (as you have found out).
I can't believe that a decent garage didn't at least advise you of this at the time when it was stripped down.
easy and cheap solution is a couple of used stub axles and hubs from a scrap yard/breakers its only 4 bolts each side and the stub will come off with the brake drum and hub all attached.
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[Martay]

Thanks for the advice.
The car is booked in at Ford tommorow to have its arse end looked at. Im already lubing up in expectation.

Even if the stubby is damaged from the one collasing, why are the ones the other side going too?
Currently its 2 on the right, 2 on the left that have gone.
____________________
Eat well, poo hard
Drives: Cavalier 2.0 16v
Rides: Slightly ratted Honda City Express

[jowettdriver]

I have had some experience with this with my grandfathers car (Ford Escort) He went through 4 different sets of rear wheel bearings all on the rear nearside. They were fitted by different garages, the last one being a Ford main dealer.

After the last set started to go my Dad and I said we'd change them for him as this was getting ridiculous. We removed the hub and took the bearings out, luckily for him the stub axel was fine still. Sure enough the bearing was on its way out again. We reasembeld it with new genuine ford replacement bearings and it has been fine ever since. 50,000 miles on and all is fine still.

We can not be sure as to why the previous 4 failed but I do wonder if it was down to a lack of cleanliness on the part of the mechanic fitting the new bearings. Obviously everything must be scrupulously clean when fitting bearings.

I know this doesn't help your predicament but just shows this can happen and you are not the only one. Best of luck with it, lets hope your Ford dealer know what they are doing!!!!

Cheers

Tim.
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Bikes: 1980 Honda CX500, 2003 Honda CB250, 1980 Honda CG125