About 2 weeks ago I noticed that my wheel had a lot of play in it, so I bought a new bearing, took off the knuckle and had the new one pressed in. Yesterday I noticed the bearing had already gone bad and had caused some play in LCA bushing and camber kit. I had the bad bearing pressed out took it back and exchanged it and had the new one pressed in, also replaced the LCA bushing and the camber kit. I recently had replaced the lower ball joint, axle and outer tie rod. Everything is either brand new or doesn't need replacing so I'm trying to figure out how a bearing can go bad in one day after only putting 20 miles on the car. I checked it when I bolted everything up before I drove the car and everything was fine, no play in anything. Any thoughts or suggestions?

 

if it went bad that fast it was either a bad bearing from the factory or it was installed wrong. how is this second replacement holding up?

 

The second one is the one I had put in yesterday that already went bad.

 

have you had the car aligned? i could see alignment affecting bearing life, but idk about it being that quick to ruin something... maybe youre just not having any luck with the bearings?

what bearings are you using? maybe look for a nice name brand bearing?

 

The car rides straight and from my driveway measurements appears to be fine toe-wise, I'm running just some slight negative camber but nothing too much. The bearing is a National I think, I know its the top of the line one at Advance.

 

bearing was probably fine, axle nut most likely wasn't tight enough

 

hate to say it but are you sure its not the other side thats making a noise?
also are you torquing the axle nut?

 

When I put the axle nut on I got it finger tight and hit it with the impact gun a couple of times, the impact gun wasn't set to its highest setting, but its middle setting should be about 250ft/lbs.

 

alignment wont effect bearing life... tire size and rim offset could but i could see mayeb a year down the road not the next day.

like mentioned...i would assume improper torque on axle nut or bad bearing install.

my money would be on bad bearing instal procedure. even with a brand new bearing it will pop out when you go to put the actual hub inside the bearing. the pressing motion will push out the other side of the bearing slighlty. if somehting is not holding the bearing together when your pressing it in then you would get slight play. with the hub out of the vehicle you cant feel the play but as soon as you throw a tire on the hub the slightest play would be felt.

 

Thanks

 

idk, i could see if you had a crazy amount of camber or the toe was WAY out, it might affect the bearing, but like i said, if possible, it wouldnt be the next day.

i think waaBAAH got it right