Rear Wheel Bearings Suddenly Bad...

Depends how bad the rotors were to remove and how a large the hammer used to knock them free :o) Just kidding... I'm sure it was done the proper way with a lot of catalyst and/or a little heat. Mine were a bear at 3x,000 miles, but PB-Blaster, patience, and some heat in the right areas was the answer. It was more likely a coincidence.

Steven

Pete D wrote:

The best and non-destructive way to remove stuck brake rotors is rent a three jaw puller from your local auto parts store. (Oreilly's, Autozone, etc) They'll come right off. If they're really seized, you'll get a loud popping noise when they release. Whatever you do, DON'T use a hammer. That's almost guaranteed to damage your wheel bearings and/or rotors.

If it was just one rear wheel bearing I might call it coincidence. But BOTH of them just happen to go bad immediately after the rear brakes are worked on??? I don't think so. The brake repair clearly resulted in damage to the bearings.

Interesting... we just got one in on friday with a horrendous noise from the rear.... Both rear wheel bearings are toast.... strangely enough, this thing is almost overdue for rear brake work....

Sorry.. you were saying?????

A little early to tell, but I smell the chance of a pattern failure....

We cannot always visit todays failure on the last person to work on the car...

But c'mon! The last person to work on the car was just yesterday, and

Question for you Jim. How do you remove stuck brake rotors in your shop?

I will have to admit that, all too often, a great deal of rust and scale will build up on the inner surface where the hub goes in.... In these cases, all one can use is an extremely heavy hand..... Thus far, we have seen no bearing failures as a result. It is, at the same time, important to back the E-brake shoes off as much as humanly possible - I did have one where I, personally broke the the brake "spider". The spider was replaced at our cost....

Now, I am not saying that it can't happen.... I AM saying that it hasn't happened to us.... in spite of some pretty heavy handed tactics.... adn we see most of these "victims" regularly at 5000 km intervals.

I AM saying that I drove an Ex on Friday that had a horrendous noise coming from the rear.... While the unit was about ready for rear brake maintenance (approx. 80,000 kms, IIRC), the Tinnerman nuts were still in place on the wheel studs.... this indicates that it is very, very unlikely that the rotors had ever been removed from the hubs. The "good" side had about

That Ford stepped up to the plate for the original poster shows the power of remaining calm and reasonable....

Yeah and how long were those bearings toast and did they BOTH go out on the same DAY and at exactly to the 0.0000023 of a mile the same mileage? I rather doubt it. You don't seem to understand the difference between correlation and causation.

Two wheel bearings going bad within one day of the brake job and one mile from the shop is not a coincidence nor a pattern failure. It suggest causation, not correlation.