Wheel bearing/hub life expectancy??
 

hi gang, title says it all.

what kinda of life do we "normally" get from the stock units?
fronts: ____?
rears: ____?

thanks a bunch.
:cheers:

Wheel Bearings
 

They are a wear item, depends on how you drive
I changed mine at a little over 100,000 miles.
Some guys that Auto Cross, change them every year
I met a guy who had 197,000 miles on the original
Don't do them until they let you know it's time

my right rear bearing just went at 31,000 others are fine from what i can see/hear

If one bearing goes out change the other side at the same time.

The bearings are made by Timken. You can get these bearings from Autozone for abour $180 each. Same bearing the chevy sells for much much more.

good luck

I changed both my rears at 150,000

How do they let you know when its time?

My fronts went 55,000 with hard track use. You will feel free play in the wheel or hear a growling noise on corners to start with. They were 130 at Autozone. I dumped the rears at 58,000 but they seemed OK. Didn't want to ruin another track day.

thanks gang.
just clipped 101k and was wondering if i should be worried....
looks like thier next on the list.

:flag:

I've been a bearing engineer for over 30 years and can tell you that bearings have a very wide life dispersion, so for a street driven only car, keep the bearings as long as they are quiet. For a "track days" car, increased load from cornering can dramatically reduce the life expectancy. But the biggest factor that can reduce wheel bearing life to 4 wheel uniformity is heat, such as from very hot brakes on a sportscar track. These bearings are "greased for life", and as soon as the life of the grease is used up by high temperature oxidation, the bearing life ends. :cheers:

Why?

Odds are the other isn't far behind.

If your stressing one wheel bearing dont you think that the opposit bearing would be stressed too?? Normally would be. They may not go at the same time but they will go soon enough.

:iagree:

:iagree: I replaced one front one last Oct before I put the car away for the winter, and last May ( when I put the car back on the road ) at the Cruise-In I had to replace the other one ( not even 500 miles between them ) and the car only had 45,000 miles on it.

A good home-made test while you have the car in the air and the wheels hanging freely, is this:

Grab the wheel, push in on the top of the wheel and pull out on the bottom of the wheel. Then reverse, pulling the top and pushing the bottom. Do this back and forth seeing if you get any play. Then try it with the left and right sides of the wheel, looking for play. You should not have ANY play in rears, and should have minimal, if that, in the fronts (slight play while the steering wheel is locked will be evident I'm sure). If you have play, suspect worn suspension parts or a bad wheel bearing/hub. Sometimes you can see these early and catch them before they ruin your hub. Anyway if the car's up, it's a 30 second check on each wheel. Not a bad idea to know where you stand.

hub and bearing is all one unit on a C5 easy to check like you said. :thumbs:

I did not know, but now I do! :thumbs:

Not sure I agree with this. I've replaced a wheel bearing, and had the one on the other side last for another 75k miles or more.
And as "2kbluestreak" the bearing engineer stated,
"bearings have a very wide life dispersion", which I take to mean that longevity tends to be all over the map.
My wife also works for a bearing manufacturing company, and they can take two bearings, same part number, and one might last 10 times as long as another in testing. As long as the lower life one meets the minimum testing specs of the customer (like GM), it's done it's job. Then, of course, some are just defective or out of tolerance in some way to begin with, or are screwed up when installed incorrectly by the automobile manufacturer.
On one of my cars, I've replace the hub assembly twice on one side. The other side is still fine at over 100 thousand miles.
Sorry, but I've never had wheel bearings go bad in pairs.
Not to say that it couldn't happen by chance. ;)

I had a rear one go bad from hitting a bump at high speed on the highway on the way back from Cruise-In V... I got off the highway and started to hear to roaring, not real loud but there. Now with 52,xxx miles my fronts have some vertical play to them but no noise, I'm going to replace them soon. I have 6 track weekends on this car.

true you never know. I had them in the garage in a box. Then went to a track weekend and one went bad and ruined the weekend. So I didn't want it to happen again. Surprised they lasted as long as they did. I did notice pad wear on one side before I ever felt play in the bearing.

And then there's the other extreme on some bearings. I'm at 115K on my OEM's. :D