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Re: Vibration Kills

This is slightly off-topic, but some mechanics can do a higher-tech "road force balance" that will try to match the "roundness" of the tire with the "roundness" of the wheel. This isn't cheap - the couple mechanics I've had do this charge $120 - $150 for a set of 4 tires - but when it's done you're probably not going to have a better balanced tire. Also, it requires equipment that many shops don't have.

Here's a Tire Rack tidbit on road force balancing (which they do on their tire/wheel combos for free):

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Hi All: > > I posted a segment regarding my lousy Loyale. > > One of the problems I've had are the wheel bearings. Gone through three > sets up front, twice on the left side, once on the right. Recently replaced > the right rear bearing set. > > Turns out that the POS tires I bought from SEARS are way out-of-round. The > imparted vibration loads the bearings in an out-of-design-spec manner, > causing them to fail. > > I'm going to take my car to the local technical college and ask them to > investigate and document the error. Then it is off to Sears for a remedy > (yeah, right!). > > So, be wary of this situiation - it has caused me no end of grief. > > Peter > >
Reply to
Ron
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Peter,

How did you arrive at this conclusion? Wheel bearing failures are a common source of discussion on Subie groups, but this is the first time I've heard out of round tires causing the problem. Not that they couldn't, but I'd think wheel bearing failure would come AFTER shock and suspension bushing wear was significant enough you would feel the vibration enough to stop and investigate (ever drive next to someone with an out of round tire or a broken shock and watched the tire bounce?) In other words, bearing failure would be the LAST in a series of "warnings."

We've discussed wheel bearings several times here, and IME one major source of failure is improper lubrication. There are lots of theories on what IS proper--you might want to do a search on "Subaru wheel bearing" to find some of the discussions on other groups, too. One of the things you'll find is a major disagreement between techs and Subaru on the subject of whether the factory grease is adequate.

You also didn't mention which tires you got from Sears. They sell everything from house branded Michelins down to price leader Brazilian made promos. My tire guy also sells some cheapo Brazilian tires (not ALL Brazilian tires are bad!), but won't let me buy any from him--he's mentioned out of round and balancing problems many times. He's even matched the price for me with better tires--it's that much of an issue with him.

Good luck with Sears...

Rick

Reply to
Rick Courtright

Reply to
Edward Hayes

Rick, I think you should add grease seal failure (water entering the bearings) as one important cause of bearing failure. Sooner or later those seals wear and...

Reply to
Gilles Gour

Yes...

This is one of the "identified" problems that's been discussed on some boards. Makes me wonder if it's really common cuz I've never seen it to be a real problem with other cars. Of course, I live in a very dry area (SoCal) so the only time most bearings I see are exposed to water is if someone's been offroad and fording streams! ;)

Rick

Reply to
Rick Courtright

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