Think wheel bearings are starting to fail

Usually you change the left one only to find out it's the right one that's bad...

Idk man…I’ve done a few wheel bearing on my Expeditions. The Moogs had excessive play after 500 miles or so and howled again. Both rears clicked back and forth by hand not 2 weeks after replacement. Replaced those with Motorcraft to never have a problem again.

JExpedition07 said:

Idk man…I’ve done a few wheel bearing on my Expeditions. The Moogs had excessive play after 500 miles or so and howled again. Both rears clicked back and forth by hand not 2 weeks after replacement. Replaced those with Motorcraft to never have a problem again.

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Good to know, thanks

Overtightening wheel lug nuts will cause wheel bearings to wear out prematurely as well.

Techs (part changers)(I used to be one) using impacts on lug nuts is a horrible practice.

I always ran the lug nuts down on low torque until they seated. Went back with a torque wrench for final tightening.

I've watched lug nuts be over tightened on new wheel bearings and the new wheel bearings were lucky to last a couple of years.

JExpedition07 said:

Idk man…I’ve done a few wheel bearing on my Expeditions. The Moogs had excessive play after 500 miles or so and howled again. Both rears clicked back and forth by hand not 2 weeks after replacement. Replaced those with Motorcraft to never have a problem again.

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All of these brands, including Motorcraft, are sourced from a variety of places - and moreover, most of those Motorcraft parts are made by whoever puts in the lowest bid. Sometimes that's a quality part and sometimes it's straight up garbage. And sometimes they're all made by the same supplier. I had 3 new wheel hub assemblies for my '11 here: SKF, MOOG and Motorcraft. All 3 were made by SKF.

Here's another: MOOG 541013 and MOTORCRAFT HUB403. Same manufacturer (Timken).

Is there a particular reason why the front driver side seems to fail first? From these posts, it seems to be a common issue. I'm getting the low drone/grinding sound from mine, which I'm 90% sure is the wheel bearing. I've done this job a couple of times before on other vehicles, so I have some idea of what I'm getting into. The vehicle has 140K and is due for replacement in the next 12 to 18 months. Will all the aftermarket parts last that long, or is there a preferred vendor? Mevotech seems to have the longest warranty (5 years) on RockAuto, but I'm not familiar with that brand. I usually use th warranty as some indicia of quality, since the manufacturer obviously doesn't want to pay for replacement if the part fails prematurely.

JasonH said:

Is there a particular reason why the front driver side seems to fail first? From these posts, it seems to be a common issue. I'm getting the low drone/grinding sound from mine, which I'm 90% sure is the wheel bearing. I've done this job a couple of times before on other vehicles, so I have some idea of what I'm getting into. The vehicle has 140K and is due for replacement in the next 12 to 18 months. Will all the aftermarket parts last that long, or is there a preferred vendor? Mevotech seems to have the longest warranty (5 years) on RockAuto, but I'm not familiar with that brand. I usually use th warranty as some indicia of quality, since the manufacturer obviously doesn't want to pay for replacement if the part fails prematurely.

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I would imagine it's because people may make more right turns than left turns. During a right turn for a normal street vehicle, the front driver's side suspension is loaded.

Wanted to post an update for anyone searching in the future. I replaced my driver's side bearing, but it turned out that the issue was actually the passenger side bearing, not the driver side. I was 90% certain that the noise was emanating from the driver's side, but it did not go away until the the passenger side was changed as well My alignment shop already confirmed it was bad, I was beginning to think the noise was tire tread from my all terrains. I guess the lesson is pull a wheel off and spin the hub to confirm your suspicions. It was apparent that the passenger bearing was bad when I spun it around after taking the tire off. That was several hours and $200 wasted.

As far as getting the bearings out, it can be a real pain since they get seized in place. I hammered out a lug and stuck a bolt in the hole, then used some oversize nuts as spacers to drive the hub out. Here's a video that shows the process. The nut pulls the bolt through and pushes against the spacers, which in turn push the bearing outwards. Wish I would have seen it before I started the job! It came out immediately using this technique, but make sure to use hardened bolts and keep a few backups, because I did snap one of them while driving out the bearing.

I joined the wheel bearing fail party.... just had the front drivers side bearing replaced at 31,500 miles..... just 2000 miles after having the cam phasers replaced. This piece of crap is gone as soon as the warranty is over.... i swear its every month something is failing or breaking on this suv

The method I use to determine which wheel bearing is bad if there is no apparent play in it is to jack up the front, put one hand on the coil spring and spin the tire with the other hand. If I feel a vibration then the bearing is bad. Has not failed me yet.