What happens if awheel bearingfails

SO…that would bring into play the ball joints…which will produce a nice clunk sound when they start to go bad. People ignore some serious sounds in their vehicles…for FAR too long…they are talking to you.

Gosh, I can’t believe I didn’t say which wheel fell off. It was the right rear. There was noise coming from the wheel, but due to some characteristic of the sound, I thought it was the right front. I even was convinced that the front wheel had fallen off, up until the point where I got out of the car and saw which one it in fact was.

This is the situation I'm in. Is a little bit of bearing play a legitimate option? Will my bearings wear down more quickly if they are slightly binding or if they are slightly loose?

Friends of mine sometimes hate it when I ride with them…I can tell them so many things about their cars just from the noises… They think I’m “spooky” cause whatever I say to check…bec its about to fail…does fail soon after. Cars make tons of noise…they are talking to you…its not time to turn up the radio…but time to listen to your car.

None of it really adds up, so I’m not going to venture a guess as to what the mechanic was told or asked about or should have done or anything else.

We still don’t know which wheel fell off, which would be good to know. The Acclaim does have bearings for the rear wheels which can be serviced. The fronts cannot. If the noise you had initially was coming from the front, and the front wheel later fell off, this cannot be attributed to the mechanic not performing a service you feel you should have received. Did your girlfriend pay the mechanic for any services, including clean/repack wheel bearings (was $18.95 where I used to work, price waived with paid brake service that involved disassembling the bearings)? If she paid nothing, the mechanic is only obligated to give the car back in the same condition it was in when it arrived at the shop. The only plausible way I could see this being pinned on the mechanic (aside from him/her being paid to repair or repack the wheel bearings and not doing the job) is if the wheel that fell off was a rear wheel, and the mechanic had taken apart the wheel bearings during the brake inspection (which has to be done for the drums to be removed on this car if a brake inspection is being done beyond just inspecting the shoes through the inspection windows) and reinstalled them without the cotter pin. Even at that, I am of the opinion that the wheel should have never been allowed to fall off. Maybe I’m just overly picky, but I refuse to drive a vehicle that sounds like it’s going to fall apart any minute, and certainly won’t allow someone I care about to drive a vehicle in that condition until the problem is corrected. Wheel bearings always give lots of advance warning before they fail catastrophically, advance warning that would prevent most people from wanting to drive the car.

On the flip side of that, however, a bearing problem whether from age or poor work won’t go from fine to flying off in an instant. Someone inside of that car was ignoring a lot of noise and probably a lot of vibration.

Locked upwheel bearing

I had always thought that leaving bearings even a tiny bit loose (be it bb, pedal, or hub) was one of the cardinal sins when it came to maintaining a bike. But reading this from Sheldon Brown put that in question:

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Back in the day when all cars had drum brakes, packing the front wheel bearings was pretty much standard with a brake job…You had to pull the hub and drum off anyway…If you drove it until the wheel fell off, burned through the spindle, it must have been making quite a commotion for quite a while before that would happen…It would have been smoking hot and easy to spot just by stopping and walking around the car…

A bearing that is adjusted too tight can actually seize completely. This happened to me once. I overhauled my front hub and tightened the bearing cones too much. Result: a front wheel that plain stopped turning at some point.

Years ago the weight weenie road racers used tae leave out a bearing in each hub, saving mebbe 100/150gms on bike weight. They never had problems! pack in more grease.

One thing to keep in mind is that a hub that feels a tiny bit loose when out of the bike will likely have no play once you put it in the frame/fork. The clamping force on the axle nuts will tighten things up, removing the excess play.

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Get the best deals on Dorman Wheel Bearings, Hubs & Seals for 2003 Ford Explorer when you shop the largest online selection at eBay.com.

Just another bit of info for the OP. Repacking the front wheel bearings was a standard procedure back in the days of RWD and front drum brakes. It pretty much went away with the introduction of disc brakes and especially with FWD with sealed bearings.

Jan 15, 2018 — You can do one side at a time and should take eight hours a side or less. Bearing hub don't interfere with anything and one can do just bad one.

About all I can suggest is ask the shop a few questions without providing any information about this incident and save all of the broken parts. Visual examination of the bearing and races should tell if it was a lube, or lack of, failure. Also look at that broken spindle and see if it still has the bearing nut and any cotter pin or lock washer in place. If the shop says they removed the drums, the bearings/races are not fried, and the cotter pin/lock washer is not in place then I’m leaning towards a mistake on their part.

Thats a FWD vehicle…you cant pack or tighten or do much at all to those bearings aside from checking for looseness when the vehicle is jacked up with the tire on…Only then will you reveal any “play” in the wheel bearing… Also that bearing HAD to be howling on its way to destruction. I dont think I have ever seen a wheel bearing NOT give clues…audible or otherwise before it departs this earthly realm.

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I have replaced many of these, and they all give the classic signs you mentioned in your post. A simple hand rotation of the tire/wheel can easily confirm the bearing pack gone bad. This mechanic somehow missed it, but I cannot see how. Even with the weight of the car off the bearing, you can easily tell a bad bearing.

As Honda Blackbird tried to allude to, this car has a wheel hub/bearing pack assembly. It is non-servicable, meaning the bearings cannot be separated to be cleaned and re-packed. They are assembled and packed for life at the factory, and are only replaceable once they give signs of being bad. Many cars have been using these since the early 90’s, and still use them today.

I also assumed it was the front. but with the rears, the bearings are usually only looked at as a separate item. Unless you ask for it, it wont be done.

I still cannot believe a mechanic can’t ID a bad wheel bearing. I’ve spotted too many to count based simply with a hand rotation of a wheel.

If not, and IF the rear drums were pulled to inspect the rear brakes, I would say that it’s at least possible that someone may have reinstalled a drum without using a cotter pin or washer lock tab (I’m not familiar with the Acclaim) on the rear wheel bearing nut. The nut could have worked loose which could then have created grinding noises from the drum rubbing on the backing plate and/or the bearings disentegrating from all of the slop, not lack of grease or failure to repack them. Wheel falls off, spindle hits the pavement, and that’s it.

Wheel bearingnoise dangerous

Cigroller is also correct about bearings not clunking and rattling and making a wild guess without seeing the damage I’m almost inclined to think a lower ball joint separated and that’s what caused the loss of the wheel.

Too tight adjustment will exert more pressure on the cones and cups, and will probably wear out the bearings faster than too loose an adjustment.

Of course, it could have disc brakes in the rear since I think some Acclaims did, and that makes it irrelevant. We could also be talking about the front which also makes it irrelevant. We could also be talking about something like a ball joint too, as others have noted.

You did not state which wheel fell off but from the post I gather it was front wheel. The front wheel bearings are sealed units; they cannot be repacked. The rear bearings can be repacked but that is not part of a brake inspection. This then begs the question: was your girlfriend prepared to pay for cleaning and repacking the rear bearings?

Bad wheel bearings also don’t clunk and rattle. They groan or buzz or hum or drone or something of that nature. Depending on what she told the mechanic or asked him to do it may or may not have been something that should have been picked up on.

"If the question is, does a brake inspection include inspecting and repacking wheel bearings the answer is no." I’m afraid that this opinion/line of thinking is what has gotten us into this mess. After consulting the Chilton shop manual for the car, I’ve learned that “the lubricant in the rear wheel bearings should be inspected whenever the hubs are removed to inspect or repair the brakes…”

Which frontwheel bearingis bad

With the old drum brakes in front, you had to remove the outer bearing to pull the drum. If you remove the bearing, then you repack it before putting it back in. Sometimes they would repack the inner bearing too, but that meant replacing the inner seal as well so that would add cost.

Was there any growling, howling, or whatever from the wheel that fell off before the brakes were checked or any handling problems with the car such as wandering and so on?

You might ask whether or not the shop inspected the rear brakes. If they are drum brakes, to the best of my knowledge, on these cars you do have to pull the wheel bearings to pull the drum. The main nut for the wheel bearing is not under a lot of torque - its just snugged a little. So it gets a cover over it that is locked in place with a large cotter pin to keep the nut in place. If the rear drums were pulled to inspect those brakes then its possible that the shop messed something up.

The wheel bearing broke, and so did the spindle. I’m not sure in which order, but the evidence according to Les Schwab, who has it now, shows that the bearing had not been cared for properly in previous hub work. I would love to “pin it on” someone, but I’ll bet that the original mechanic didn’t even check the rear brakes by removing the drums - that’s more work than they’re willing to do for free.

... bearing outer ring. The HBU 2.1 combines an HBU1 with a flange ensuring fast and simple installation on vehicles. Typically found on non-driven front or rear ...

The mechanic “sent her away” implies that he refused to fix an unsafe car so that begs the question; was your girlfriend prepared to spend any money at all fixing anything on this car? Rear shocks are cheap. Your girlfriend did not even want those?

Cigroller, I recently did a bearing pack on a 1996 Plymouth Breeze, similar to the Acclaim, just not as boxey. We, at first, thought it was the CV joint, as the symptoms were nearly identical. But, once on the lift, the tire was so loose, you could almost pull it off the steering knuckle if not for the CV joint. If that center nut were to snap off, the wheel would have indeed gone flying. Once we pulled the CV joint off, the bearing pack seemed to explode apart, sending dry ball bearings everywhere on the shop floor. That was the worst of it, including the clean-up, chasing ball bearings all over. The repair at that point went smoothly on the re-assembly.

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Play inwheel bearing

Are brake techs supposed to check, then tighten wheel bearings or repack them if needed? Any literature that can help me with this?

Cigroller, of course when it got to me, they claimed the ‘weird’ sound was there for a while. I was actually fixing a squealing and worn out power steering belt, and they asked me about it. They pulled into the shop while I was in the office, so I didn’t hear it moving, just the squeal of the belt caught my attention. The minute we moved the car, the rattle, groan, and pop sounded like a classic CV joint. When I lifted the car to inspect the joint, I noticed the wheel was very loose. The CV joint was fine, but the wheel looked and felt like it was about to fall off. In fact, the CV joint was the only thing keeping the hub together.

For proper adjustment, the Park tool website has good instructions: http://www.parktool.com/blog/repair-help/hub-overhaul-and-adjustment

How long can you drive on a badwheelhub assembly

Hope all of you are OK after that issue…The mechanic MIGHT have checked your wheels/ball joints etc if you asked him to do so or he was doing a related service that brought him into contact with those parts…but not really mandatory checks…Now I PERSONALLY check these things…just cause I am the curious type and it takes no time at all once the car is in the air etc…

In fact, there is going to be no way to know what happened unless we are given more details - like which wheel came off, for instance. IF this car has drum brakes and IF it was a rear wheel that came off then I’d actually suspect there’s some chance that the shop messed up, but not by failure to inspect/repack the bearings but by maybe leaving the pin / retaining nut off after having reinstalled the brake drum & bearings.

My girlfriend owns a '92 Plymouth Acclaim. We noticed a few weeks ago that there was a clunk/rattle noise coming from one wheel, and since it mostly happened while cornering, thought it might be CV joints or maybe suspension. She brought it to her mechanic who inspected the brakes and found that the rear shocks were bad, but sent her away without fixing anything. The other day, on a long drive, the rattle suddenly intensified, morphed into a loud grinding noise, and then the wheel fell off.

If nothing you can do will eliminate both the binding and the play at the same time, it is better to adjust a little loose and accept a slight amount of play then to have the hub bind

2020119 — Only happens when I turn left, and it seems to me like it's coming from the front left but it's a bit hard to pinpoint the location precisely.

I think I’m going to have to confront the mechanic. The bearings apparently hadn’t been repacked in some time, and were surely the cause of the rattle noise. I’m less concerned with the fact that he might have overlooked an obvious problem as much as neglected to properly service the vehicle.

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I’m not sure if I’m reading this wrong, I’ll add that the shop where the car is now commented that the bearings obviously hadn’t been repacked in some time.

Dec 16, 2011 — Not recommended to drive on it. If worn badly enough the bearing may have damaged the races in the hub, too, and that gets expensive.

With early disc brakes, the wheel bearings only had to be removed if the disc was being changed. In a few models, when the disc was changed, the wheel bearings had to be replaced as well as the races were machined into the disc. With FWD, the bearing is a separate issue all together.

I just overhauled some cheap bmx hubs. I installed new bearings and cones. Now I'm trying to get the hubs adjusted so that the bearings will last as long as possible.

I hope you guys aren’t annoyed by my questions. I kind of thought it would be an interesting story, with the possible subplot of a dirtbag brake tech putting my gf’s life in danger.

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If a certain mechanic does ALL the maintenance on your car…then he/she SHOULD suggest what type of service is needed. Repacking the wheel bearing is something I’ve ALWAYS done whenever I serviced the brakes on a vehicle (some vehicles you can’t very easily) it’s NOT a requirement. BUT they should be checked and repacked regularly…It should be spelled out in the owners manual. A good mechanic should know what cars have serviceable bearings. If he’s been taking care of the car all this time then why weren’t they ever checked??? If he’s just some mechanic your gf used once or just every once in a while…then all bets are off.

So I’m curious BustedKnuckles. What you’re saying is that the Breeze presented only with symptoms of a bad CV joint, but it turned out to be a near-dead wheel bearing? I’d think that it should have been droning up a storm, but I’m curious to know the outward symptoms.