i had my front left wheel bearing replaced 5 months ago. a few weeks ago the noise came back and i thought it sounded like it was the same wheel bearing. brought it to my mechanic and he said it wasn't the left one as i thought but instead the right one and charged me to replace it. i think he's lying because there are finger prints all over the left tire where i thought the wheel bearing noise was coming from but not a spot on the right tire which is the side he said he replaced.

if i have to take off the tires i will but hopefully there's a way to check without it.

somebody please help me out

 

even if you take off the tire, you won't be able to see the new bearing, you will have to remove the axle out of the spindle to take a glance at the bearing. My advise is remove the wheel and see if any of the bolts that hold the knuckle have signs that they were removed. Look at the axle bolt to see if it was removed, if there are no signs on any of the bolts, the wheel bearing was not replaced. GL.

 

i guess i'll have to do that. how hard is it to change the bearing/hub on my own?

there's no chance that i can get a different mechanic to simply check it for like $60 is there? i'd like to know for certain before i go accusing my mechanic of lying.

 

You shouldn't need to change the hub unless it is damaged. If you have the tools, you can replace a wheel bearing. I would suggest getting a new locknut for the bearing and making sure you torque it to factory specs...245 lb-ft or it may back off on you. In fact, that may be your problem now, could be the mechanic reused the locknut and didn't tighten it enough.

 

i'm not asking about the hub. he only had to replace the wheel bearing he said. i just want to check to see if he replaced the left one or right one that's all. not trying to replace anything.

 

[QUOTE=XGaSpAcHo;6230527]i guess i'll have to do that. how hard is it to change the bearing/hub on my own?

You did ask about the Hub. But if you're asking about checking all this without taking the wheel off I'm pretty sure you won't be able to do any mechanical work.

P.S. the bearing needs pressed into the hub also...

 

Jack your car up and spin the tire, then compare the noise it makes with a good one. If you hear like a woo woo woo noise (besides the noise the brakes make) your hub is usually bad.

 

My question is... did the noise go away after the "left" wheel bearing was replaced....You never stated if the noise was still there after the left one was replaced. Your question sounds like its still there ?

 

lol wow ahh why not just check if the bearing is bad with the tire on lol thats how most people check it anyways, also ^+1 on what hes asking

 

You can check if its bad that way, but this dood wants to know if you can check if it was replaced with the wheel still on..... not if its bad.

 

you can do that in the rear wheels but not the front because the wheels won't turn freely due to the fact that the wheels are linked to the tranny via axles and it won't let you spin the wheels like in the rear.

 

Then why did you ask how hard it is to change the bearing/hub on your own?

 

1. there are other methods of checking the bearing with the wheel on. grip tire at 12 and 6. pull back and forth. feel for any looseness.

2. when getting bearing work done, I always remove the spindle myself and just take the spindle to the shop. That way I don't have to worry about morons torquing all my nuts and bolts wrong, or using an impact gun. Also that way I can SEE if it's a new bearing or not, and make sure that it is pressed in evenly and to the correct "offset" (for lack of a better word).

3. The smudges on the wheel seem like a compelling case. That said, they could have just had hands on that wheel to check for bearing looseness and there was none, so they replaced the other one instead? Just throwing the idea out there...

 

yeah, sorry for the confussion. the noise went away. my problem is not that he didnt fix it but rather that he lied about which one he replaced. because if he admited that the left one was the problem he would have to do it no charge since he just did that one less than 5 months ago.

hope that makes more sense...

 

sorry originally i wanted to know if you can tell if it was recently replaced. but then i figured that while i had everyone's attention i'd ask if it was hard to do it myself if i had to next time. i forgot i threw that question in.

 

Why would he have to replace it for free if it was the left one? I can see if the bearing had warranty it would be covered but I don't see why the labour would be covered? Five months is long enough to eliminate installation error. I would imagine the left tire is dirty since a lot of effort had to be used to see if they could get play and I would think little effort would have been used on the right side to determine that one was gone since the right side was worked on the mechanic may have cleaned up that side. It is always a good idea to get both bearings done at the same time since they both have similar use and experienced similar conditions therefore they should fail around the same time and 5 months sounds reasonable.

 

because it started happening over a month ago so it's more like 3.5 months (i told him about it but couldn't bring it in for a bunch of reasons) and plus he said that he would take care of it if it was the same bearing.

also, he didn't clean anything. my rims were dirty when i brought it in and the right one still had all the dirt on it while the left one had the dirt smudged all over. so if he smudged the left one testing for it he should have done the same with the right.

i have never heard of having both wheel bearing replaced at the same time. why would i want to spend money to fix something that isn't broken? it's not a brake light which is $2. why wouldn't i just take it again if the other one brakes?