I've been having odd vibes in the steering wheel, and the odd squeak (non-braking related) so I changed up the left side wheel bearing today at work (well sorta before and after work with the bosses permission haha)... I was pretty disappointed when I pulled the whole hub assembly and rotated it by hand because the old bearing still felt really smooth. anyways - pressed in the new bearing reassembled everything and I gotta say the drive home was wayyyy better than before, less flutter (i think when I change the RHS it will be even better), no squeaks, and this other weird errr errr noise that I thought was rub when I cornered harder also disappeared. I look forward to changing my RHS just to eliminate all flutter.

I don't really get it though, I mean when I pressed the hub out of the old bearing the one side of the inner race of course stayed with the hub, so visually the old bearing looked fine too, felt fine? it's probably different under a driving load - but still, I was hoping to see like a broken ball or some nasty metal shavings or something to confirm my suspicions? however the difference is apparently night and day for what I feel. If only those rears weren't so damn pricey with the hub );

 

The smallest imperfection will be magnified ridiculously when all the weight of the car is on it, spinning, around a turn. A lot of times you can tell a real bad wheel bearing by touch, but a lot of other times you just see the symptoms... I replaced one that was so bad you could feel a slight play in the wheel if you gripped the top of the tire and yanked side to side. But when we got the bearing out you couldn't even tell there was anything wrong with it. Made a world of difference though, like you said.