WRX front wheel bearing failure...common?

[NitroTrike]

Just picked up my 2002 wrx from the dealer...AGAIN, this time the passenger
side front wheel bearing went at 72k miles. The driver side went out 2 months
ago at 65k. Ok, so I drive it alot. The dealer had it back to me the same day,
as the parts were in stock..(which leads me to believe this is a common
occurance. The extended warrantee covered it (with my $100 deductible) both
times. I wonder what else will break before the 80k extended warrantee is up?

Has anyone else ran into this???

 

[Jim Stewart]

Just picked up my 2002 wrx from the dealer...AGAIN, this time the passenger
side front wheel bearing went at 72k miles. The driver side went out 2 months
ago at 65k. Ok, so I drive it alot. The dealer had it back to me the same day,
as the parts were in stock..(which leads me to believe this is a common
occurance. The extended warrantee covered it (with my $100 deductible) both
times. I wonder what else will break before the 80k extended warrantee is up?

Has anyone else ran into this???

Could the problem have anything to do
with your email address

 

[Catherine Hampton]

Just picked up my 2002 wrx from the dealer...AGAIN, this time the passenger
side front wheel bearing went at 72k miles. The driver side went out 2 months
ago at 65k. Ok, so I drive it alot. The dealer had it back to me the same day,
as the parts were in stock..(which leads me to believe this is a common
occurance. The extended warrantee covered it (with my $100 deductible) both
times. I wonder what else will break before the 80k extended warrantee is up?

Has anyone else ran into this???

The rear wheel bearings on my '98 Outback Sport went out at 55K and 60K miles,
and that is apparently a known problem with late 1990 models of the Outback
Sport. But that doesn't affect the front bearings on these models...

My experience might still be instructive, though. Subaru Motor corporation
categorically refused to issue a recall on these cars to replace the faulty
wheel bearing assemblies. :/ They are not good about taking responsibility for
design or manufacturing flaws on their cars. A pity, since the cars themselves
are cool.



--
Catherine Hampton <(e-mail address removed)>
Home Page * <http://www.devsite.org/>
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(Please use this address for replies -- the address in my header is a
spam trap.)

 

[David Betts]

Just picked up my 2002 wrx from the dealer...AGAIN, this time the passenger
side front wheel bearing went at 72k miles. The driver side went out 2 months
ago at 65k. Ok, so I drive it alot. The dealer had it back to me the same day,
as the parts were in stock..(which leads me to believe this is a common
occurance. The extended warrantee covered it (with my $100 deductible) both
times. I wonder what else will break before the 80k extended warrantee is up?

Has anyone else ran into this???

Not unreasonable mileages to be replacing wheel bearings. No problems
on mine yet, though. Went through 66,666 last week.

David Betts
(e-mail address removed)

 

[Rick Courtright]

Has anyone else ran into this???

Hi,

Seems most Subaru wheel bearing failures are on the rear--you can google
"subaru wheel bearing" to learn way more than you might want to know!
But you may be able to apply some of that knowledge to your front
bearings.

In finding a "solution" to the rear bearing problem, it seems Subaru's
come up with a "pre-packed" bearing they claim requires no further
packing at installation. I look at that with a tremendous amount of
skepticism, as do many others, since it appears Subaru doesn't put
enough grease in to ensure long life. There are arguments on both sides
of this issue.

But with that in mind, do you have a trusted independent mechanic who
could possibly pull the outer grease seals and give you an educated
opinion on whether there's adequate grease in your bearings? It might be
worth a few bucks to do so, and correct a problem early if one's
detected.

Some people don't think the mileage you've seen is bad... I don't
either: I think it's attrocious! There are too many cars out there going
200k miles and more on a set of wheel bearings to believe 70k is
"normal." At least in my opinion! (My fronts went over 300k, I lost one
rear at about 250k miles, the other rear's still going at over 350k--but
that's not on a WRX. Don't know if the extra power adds to the
problem...)

Rick

 

[Mickey]

NitroTrike wrote:




Hi,

Seems most Subaru wheel bearing failures are on the rear--you can google
"subaru wheel bearing" to learn way more than you might want to know!
But you may be able to apply some of that knowledge to your front
bearings.

In finding a "solution" to the rear bearing problem, it seems Subaru's
come up with a "pre-packed" bearing they claim requires no further
packing at installation. I look at that with a tremendous amount of
skepticism, as do many others, since it appears Subaru doesn't put
enough grease in to ensure long life. There are arguments on both sides
of this issue.

But with that in mind, do you have a trusted independent mechanic who
could possibly pull the outer grease seals and give you an educated
opinion on whether there's adequate grease in your bearings? It might be
worth a few bucks to do so, and correct a problem early if one's
detected.

Some people don't think the mileage you've seen is bad... I don't
either: I think it's attrocious! There are too many cars out there going
200k miles and more on a set of wheel bearings to believe 70k is
"normal." At least in my opinion! (My fronts went over 300k, I lost one
rear at about 250k miles, the other rear's still going at over 350k--but
that's not on a WRX. Don't know if the extra power adds to the
problem...)

Rick

I'm with Rick on bearing life. Have never had a bearing actually fail
and I keep all my cars over 100k miles.

Replaced an 88 Sentra with >250k miles with an 00 OBW. Replaced the
bearings at about the 240k mile point as they seemed a little noisy.
Maintenance free bearing cartridges are the norm for front wheel drive
and have been used on the rear axle as well on some cars for many yrs.
This is not an Subaru exclusive or Subaru developed design.

I see these bearing as a + for the manufacturer as they eliminate the
greasing and adj during manufacturer but they are a - to the end user.
Bearing prices are high and requires a press to remove and replace.
I cried when I had to pay someone to do the press work. Between the
bearing and press work I had a little over $200 in to replacing all 4
bearings. With conventional bearings the job would have cost about a
third.

Mickey

 

[Chris Phillipo]

The rear wheel bearings on my '98 Outback Sport went out at 55K and 60K miles,
and that is apparently a known problem with late 1990 models of the Outback
Sport. But that doesn't affect the front bearings on these models...

My experience might still be instructive, though. Subaru Motor corporation
categorically refused to issue a recall on these cars to replace the faulty
wheel bearing assemblies. :/ They are not good about taking responsibility for
design or manufacturing flaws on their cars. A pity, since the cars themselves
are cool.

I hope Subaru knows that myself and others did not buy a Forrester for
this very same reason. A $600 repair every 10k is not what I look for
in a car.

 

[George Adams]

From: Chris Phillipo

I hope Subaru knows that myself and others did not buy a Forrester for
this very same reason. A $600 repair every 10k is not what I look for
in a car.

Well, my 1998 FoRester just turned 200,000 miles last Sunday. The passenger
side rear wheel bearing was replaced at 82,000 miles for a little over $400.
All the other bearings remain factory original.


George Adams

"All good fishermen stay young until they die, for fishing is the only dream of
youth that doth not grow stale with age."
---- J.W Muller

 

[Rick Courtright]

side rear wheel bearing was replaced at 82,000 miles for a little over $400.

Hmmm...

$400 for wheel bearings in 200k miles doesn't seem unreasonable,
assuming a bearing's about $25, there's an hour's labor per wheel at
$75, and all four corners are done.

But bearings that, more often than chance would dictate, fail in <100k
miles and cost $400 for one corner (that's $1600 for all four--omigod!)
rate way up there on the scale of "engineering malpractice" IMO.
Especially since that's $400 MORE than my either of my Toyotas (one
stolen at 136k miles, the other still going fine at 217k), my '77 VW
Rabbit (189k when sold) or even my ratty old '73 914 "garage space taker
upper" (somewhere over 200k--odo's broken) and on and on, have cost me.
The bar was raised on wheel bearing life at least 30 years ago, but it
seems Subaru didn't get the memo. I think that's what Chris was hinting
at.

Rick

 

[Catherine Hampton]

I hope Subaru knows that myself and others did not buy a Forrester for
this very same reason. A $600 repair every 10k is not what I look for
in a car.

Every *10*K? It sounds like the Forrester had a much worse problem than my
Outback Sport, then. Mine went out at 50K and 55K, as I recall. Which is way
too soon, of course, but not to the same extent.



--
Catherine Hampton <(e-mail address removed)>
Home Page * <http://www.devsite.org/>
The SpamBouncer * <http://www.spambouncer.org/>

(Please use this address for replies -- the address in my header is a
spam trap.)

 

[Chris Phillipo]

Subject: Re: WRX front wheel bearing failure...common?
From: Catherine Hampton <(e-mail address removed)>
Newsgroups: alt.autos.subaru



Every *10*K? It sounds like the Forrester had a much worse problem than my
Outback Sport, then. Mine went out at 50K and 55K, as I recall. Which is way
too soon, of course, but not to the same extent.

As near as I could tell with the Forester, those that had premature
bearing failures had repeated failures, which points to a faulty bearing
or carrier design or possible just bad alignment, and Subaru didn't
cover any of them. That's why I went for the Rav4, it's slower but it's
bulletproof as far as reliability, I still plan to get an Impreza wagon
next time around if !@#$ Subaru hasn't priced them into BMW M3 territory
by then.

 

[Rick Courtright]

next time around if !@#$ Subaru hasn't priced them into BMW M3 territory
by then.

Anyone remember when the Subaru sales slogan was "Inexpensive, and built
to stay that way?" Apparently Subaru doesn't...

Rick