I just put the second wheel bearing set in my wifes 01 EX 4cyl auto coupe. First one was drivers rear at about 70,000 miles and now the passengers front at about 100,000 miles. Both times the car would get louder than a lifted rig on mudders going down the highway. I'm amazed at such wheel bearing failure from this or any modern car. Is this abnormal?....Normal?

 

it all depends how it's driven i believe. pot holes, curb rash....all puts extra load on the bearing.

 

Recently I was changing my oil, when i spun both my front tires and they seemed stiff to spin and it sounded like i could hear rubbing, does this mean a bad wheel bearing or something with the brakes. it wasn't super stiff but once i stopped pushing on the wheel the wheel instantly stopped. Is this normal?

Its a 91 accord ex standard with 393,000 km's.

 

Eric,
It's normal, or it is unless it actually feelsquite tight. If it feels quite tight then you should get it checked out.

If it's normal then; the rubbing noise is just the pads skimming the disc lightly. The resistance you feel is because the wheel is attached to a driveshaft that is attached to the differential that is attached to the other d/shaft and other wheel. When you spin one wheel you are also turning the pinion gears in the differential and turning the other wheel etc in the opposite direction to the direction in which you are spinning the first wheel. It's friction (slight) and theinertia of the mass of all the bits and pieces that are moving (quite a bit of mass when all added together). It's the same deal as you'll get trying to spin the rear wheel on a rear drive car.

 

ok thanks

 

Absolute check for the wheel bearings is to remove the brake pads so you don't have to guess whether the brakes are causing the drag. THEN the bearingshould feelsmooth & quiet. With the seals, it still won't coast forever like a bicycle wheel.

With some practice, you can usually tell the difference between a bad wheel bearing vs. dragging brakes (without removing the brakes). But it's hard to describe on a board like this...

 

I could tell for sure the rear one was going bad by spinning the wheel with the car on stands but the front one was a different story. The driveline offered too much resistance for me to feel like I was getting a good read on it by spinning it even with the brake caliper removed. I ended up going with a guess of which side, passenger in my case, was going bad. After the new bearing was in I really couldn't tell much difference in the way the wheel felt when spinning it by hand. Is there another way to diagnose which side is going bad on a front wheel drive car.

 

Drive around some curves. Usually the bearing will get noisier when it's on the outside of the curve. But occasionally it won't change much...

IFyou can make the noise going slow in a parking lot...then have someone stand & listen while you drive past them on either side. Sometimes it's easier to hear which side from outside the car.

 

A wheel bearing will run until it get's very noisy, so easiest diagnostic is to wait for noise to get worse where there's no doubt which wheel and cause of noise. Of course, you may be insane from the roaring by this time.

I drove a 94 BMW w/ a bar rear wheel bearing on a 2000 mile trip. At; start of the trip, I had a mild growling from rear. By the time I got home, it was howling and I couldn't wait to replace that bearing.

good luck

 

Jack the car up and wiggle the wheels reasonably hard. If there is any play that occurs when you wiggle the wheel in any direction then you have a bad bearing. Sometimes you might be able to see / feel end float, i.e. the whole wheel might pull / push in / out slightly.

Just because you might not have any play in the bearings doesn't necessarily mean you don't have bearing issues, but if you do have [play then you do have bearing trouble, but make sure that what you're feeling isn't play in the ball joints or steering linkage.