Does a bearing poop in the woods?
 

My wife's Corolla is an execrable vehicle. It has a "pothole finder" headlight; no hubcaps, lots of dents, and my six foot frame gets achy if I sit in it more than 30 minutes. She loves it, though.

Yesterday it ate its FOURTH wheel bearing, installed just a few months ago. Anybody else have problems with Corolla wheel bearings?

Re: Does a bearing poop in the woods?
 

When the bearing was replaced, did you replace the race as well?

Re: Does a bearing poop in the woods?
 

what about missing dust caps?

Re: Does a bearing poop in the woods?
 

Ran into this problem on a friend's Kia Sephia.

Autozone wheel bearings went in it each time and after about 5-6k miles it would be bad... solution was to get an entire hub from the junkyard for $20 and call it good. It rolled another 40k like that until she sold it.

Re: Does a bearing poop in the woods?
 

sounds like to me you guys didn't grease the bearings properly or something.. There really is no reason for a bearing to go so quickly unless it's not lubed up at all.

Re: Does a bearing poop in the woods?
 

I have had the same problem... But it was not a grease problem (most newer wheel bearings are a sealed bearing, so no way for you to grease them). The problem is the Autozone cheap bearings are made in China and just crap.

Try and find a place that carries Timken or Chicago Rawhide bearings. Those are two that I have had luck with in the past. That said, I think both USED to be made in the US, but it has been a few years (over 5) since I had to do that research so it could have changed by now.

Re: Does a bearing poop in the woods?
 

The bearings are sealed units. We had one replaced at a toyota dealer, but it crapped out too. The later bearings have been aftermarket units.

Re: Does a bearing poop in the woods?
 

are you sure? the only bearings I've seen that are sealed units are the ones used for the throwout bearing or whatnot.. These ARE tapered bearings, right?

Re: Does a bearing poop in the woods?
 

I have no idea whether these bearings have roller, ball or tapered roller elements. They're shielded and sealed, so you can't look inside.

Re: Does a bearing poop in the woods?
 

It turns out, the bearings are usually double ball bearing which totally sucks imo.. I'm going to try to find a way to see if I can get some tapered roller bearings for my civic in place of these ball bearings.. Totally disgraceful that they'd use ball bearings.

Re: Does a bearing poop in the woods?
 

good luck with that. for the price of finding bearings and machining the hub/spindle to accept them you could replace the balls a couple times probably.

I just checked on parts listings on rockauto, the front bearing up till 2002 is a NON SEALED double row ball bearing that's pressed in. you can mess it up installing it but more likely, they haven't replaced the grease seal (many places do overlook this) and it isn't sealing anymore or the polished area it mates to is damaged causing even a new seal to not do it's job.

after 2002 it's a self sealed version of the same thing.

Could also be something like a bent hub (or wheel if you haven't rotated the tires) or damaged knuckle causing problems.

Re: Does a bearing poop in the woods?
 

I apologize if this is considered bringing back an "old" thread.

My '92 Infiniti G20 went thru a couple of front left wheel bearings in 2 months. Then I realized the hub needed to be changed ALONG with the new bearing. Our 3rd attempt was a success after changing both the hub and wheel bearing. I spent $40 for the ebay hub and $20 for the ebay wheel bearing.