what bearing failure really means!

[smokin_fun]

Today on the way back from my favourite cold beer and wine store i experienced true bearing failure in my 92 td. Lets just say a blender full of gravel would have sounded better. After many years and many many cars (including 5 years of cab driving) i had never really found out what happens after that intense humming rubbing sound. Now i know. Highly unrecommended.

BTW bearing in question was genuine vw installed at the dealership just over 2 months ago!

sorry no sound bite of it but if you wanna know the sound is like put a beer bottle in a garbarator with some rocks and ball bearings then turn on high!

[rabbitman]

Front wheel bearing?

[smokin_fun]

nope, passenger rear

[rabbitman]

nope, passenger rear

Weird, I've heard rears get noisy but it's usually the fronts that cause the worst problems.

[8v-of-fury]

I had a noisy rear that as crazy noisy... and went for everr lol

[theman53]

I had a passenger rear WB go. I thought it was a front and replaced and still had noises. I went and went kept fixing stuff until one day I was taking a friend of mine to the video rental place. He said something to the effect of "Dude your rear wheel is leaning" I looked and realized immediately what was up...I never was on the passenger side when it was that bad. I said " I will fix it as soon as I get home...it is only another 7 miles. " Well that must have been the magic phrase, because after months of driving it growling away at about the 6 mile mark it blew up. I had to get another stub axle and the entire works as the tire did everything but come off in the last mile.
It does sound cool though!

[truckinwagen]

buddy of mine had a rear bearing fail in his ford festiva, wheel came off the car at 75MPH.

funny enough, when it happened, we looked at each other and said "why has the bearing sound suddenly stopped?" right before the wheel and tire(hub and drum attached) overtook us.

he did the dumb thing and stood on the brakes, making us veer off the road(rear wheel cylinder popped, making the one front brake stop working with it)

did remarkably little damage to  the car, we were able to reuse the stub axle and hub, just took new bearings and axle nut.

[theman53]

Yeah nothing puts butt bites in a seat like a tire flying off. My pal had a tendency to only put on 2 lugs when working on our off road trucks rear ends so it wouldn't take forever to take them on/off when rolling them around the garage. We had one of my 38.5" super swampers jump off after a short "test" drive. It lodged in the wheel well and bent some stuff, but it ultimately was fine. It is kind of scary though as my old high school principal had a daughter that was killed by a tire bouncing down the road right into her winsheild.

[wolf_walker]

I had one get noisy and spin on the stub shaft, eating it up, while on the road once years ago.
My field fix involved a new bearing and safety wire to build up the OD of the stub shaft
to hold the bearing.  Wish those damn things were more heavy duty, I've killed more than a few
with long trips and decent loads in the Caddy.

[truckinwagen]

yeah, losing a wheel certainly is butt-puckering, have had it happen more than once and its never fun.

and I agree that the rear bearings are really poor. hell just spirited driving(well, more than spirited, but you know...) will blow them out on my MK2 GTI.

-Owen

[8v-of-fury]

I had a noisy rear that as crazy noisy... and went for everr lol

Rosarita Refries?  You gotta stop eatin' those...

Rosarita Refries? Whatever they are.. maybe it is you that needs to stop Thats scary to think of a rear wheel coming off... after a bearing failure.. how would it come off? the outter nut loosening?

[truckinwagen]

yeah, the festiva did not have left handed threads on one side, just a castle nut and pin(much like the vw one) and the bearing failure allowed the hub to contact the nut, shearing the pin and spinning the nut off.

strangely enough the festiva held that corner of the car off the ground with two people in the front, so it did not drop and scrape the rear of the car when the wheel came off.(the thing was so light in the rear that two people could pick it up, and often did, as the car had no reverse)

could have been much worse, and losing a wheel at speed is certainly no joke. my boss lost a wheel and axle in his fullsize pickup once(retaining clip in the diff broke) and it got ahead of him, he couldn't stop in time and ran it over putting the axle up through the floor of the cab right between him and the passenger.

Go replace your bad wheel bearings!

-Owen

[Syncroincity]

Rosarita Refries?  You gotta stop eatin' those...

LOL! Pedro and the Man at the drive-in? Ooonka doonka... BLATTT  Funniest stuff ever when I was 10 years old!

[8v-of-fury]

PLease let me in on the Refries! I AM TOO YOUNG LOL

[Syncroincity]

PLease let me in on the Refries! I AM TOO YOUNG LOL

Heh, it's a track on a Cheech & Chong album... Los Cochinos, maybe? Cheech is by himself in the car at the drive in and blasts one and almost kills himself. "I gotta stop eating those Rosarita Refries" (refried beans) Classic stuff, we used to listen to it when I was a kid, we'd howl laughing until we were crying...

No luck finding it on youtube.