Bruce said a car should get 100 000 miles on wheel bearings. I had a '89 Mercury Tracer (i.e., a bastard Mazda 323 born in Mexico; actually a very good car) that made "that" grinding noise after about 85,000. I fixed it myself and it was pretty easy although another car might be harder. Maybe the toughest part was deciding how tight to make the wheel against the bearing, without some fancy tool. Well, back when daddy was a machinist in WW2 they didn't have a fancy tool; he taught me get it SNUG then back it off a 1/4 turn. Much easier to fix than a water pump :-| or head gasket :-O
To the OrigPoster, I'm having the same problem as you, shopping for a new car. Look hard, and you can find a defect on any fairly priced car. Saturns were notorious in this respect: a budget car, and buyers with very high expectation. For example, supposedly Saturns eat brake rotors. (My '95 ate mine. So it goes.)
I was interested in a RAV4 also; don't you just love the way they use the spare tire as a BUMPER? The CRX isn't much better.
And there have been some interesting threads on the Toyota ng about the cars pulling to the left. Some owners vow they will never buy a Toyota again! And don't some claim Toyotas form sludge and DESTROY the engine? I'm not making this stuff up. Cars and women, huh? They look great until you've had them a few years.
It's tough. Do you roll the dice, or look for a better bet? With my Saturn I just lived with it, paid for the premature brake repairs. I bought a certain motorcycle, ignoring several reports that they run lean. Major mistake. At virtually every stop and shift the bike wants to kill.
Maybe we should just keep the cars we have. Sometimes the devil you know is better than the devil you don't know. And you won't be upside down. I read a report that it's getting to be a problem, people go to get a new car and their current car loan is upside down. And I think it's going to get worse. But that only happens to other people.
I had my right rear wheel bearing replaced twice, and the left once all by 60K miles! One repair was under warranty, the rest I paid for. Subaru just stonewalled me about it.
In article , snipped-for-privacy@webtv.net says...
Well American cars are right out, I don't need to do any further research, the GMC S15 I had was little more than a tractor with a highway plate and a great view of the road through the rusted out floor. You'd think all that oil it leaked would help preserve it. I currently own a 4 Runner and I know all about the sludge reports in Camry engines which so far seems to mainly center around one kook named "charlene" who got ripped off by a quick lube place and demands Toyota pay for it. Can't say much about alignment problems since I've hit more curbs, logs and big rocks than I can count with the wheel at full lock in the snow and mud and have yet to put it so much as a half degree out of alignment in the 5 times I've had it checked since owning it. I researched my Toyota in a similar fashion to what I'm doing now, I knew that it had head gasket troubles and that's about it. One head gasket in 133,000 km for a truck that has an engine, transmission and driveline that typically sales past 250,000 km with no major work besides timeing belts and valve adjustments was acceptable to me. 25,000 km wheel bearings and 60,000 km transmissions that I can't change myself, that is not. I have had to do brake work almost every year, but that is purely a function of how I drive it. Both of the first two years I had it I burned a set of pads up and cooked the seals right out of the front calipers from left foot braking under power through corners on snow. I calmed down a bit after that and now have 4 years on the current calipers. The original wheel bearings are still in my truck and that has spent a lot of time door deep in mud and even sea water.
Have you seen my truck with the 32" spare tire in the back? :)
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It's what I bolt my bike rack to so I can do extra damage to the econo boxes as they slide right under it, I've been meaning to get a Red Baron style decal for the door, 3 and 1/2 cell phones to show how many of those blind retards have shortened the life of their car behind me at a red light. I get to use the same rack on the Rav4 that I have for my 4Runner and the door swings out even with two bikes attached so that's a bonus. I always read in reviews about rear mounted spare tires and how much it costs when you back into a pole. I find it's much cheaper NOT to back into a pole, I.e. don't let your wife drive. :) The CRV is not an option for me, and I work at a Honda dealership so that should tell you something. I have waited and waited for Honda to come out with a full time 4wd...anything, even if it's twice as ugly as an Element I would buy it just to say I have a Honda and be able to get parts cheap. But no, they just make that same reactive system they always have. Pissing me off and keeping me paying retail for parts on other brands. The Rav4 has a full time 4wd system taken from the old Celica All-Track not unlike the Subaru design (of course not as good), the CRV has a reactive system, you are in front wheel drive until the front wheels slip, then the back wheels engage 2 weeks later with a little bit of power in time to toss you into the ditch just as you set up the pendulum into the corner. It's a great system for people who need help getting up their icy driveway but you'll embarrass yourself at a rally cross event with it.
Honestly I can't find the Achilles heel of Rav4s yet aside from being slow and everyone seems to have a dash rattle that they aren't willing to fix themselves. Oh, and the 2000 body style which is what I'm shopping for is by far the ugliest thing on the road, not counting the whole lower subset of ugly that exists in american cars (Aztek, PT Cruiser, Avalanche etc.) Ravs seem to be like my truck, an overbuilt drive train with an underpowered engine so it doesn't have the ability to wear itself out. Rather than smoke the heavy duty clutch in the Rav4 when you pop it, it just stalls. Lighting up the tires on pavement is a physical impossibility. I think most of the Subaru tranny problems can be easily traced back to the incredible torque the engine produces and the owner's use of it, it has the potential to burn a clutch in one day if you are not careful and with an automatic you don't get any lights or screeming in pain to warn you that having your foot to the mat off the light is killing some important parts. I found the 25% torque split of the Rav to be fun to drive, the engine is a dog but with a 5 Speed is sufficient for my purposes (other guys are driving Golfs and Subaru Justies so it's no exactly top level competition and the few that show up with WRXs were going to win anyway). I tried an Impreza TS and that was WAY too much fun to drive. I think I would have to factor in the cost of speeding tickets as part of my monthly payment plan. And then there's insurance, it's almost like the insurance company knows what I would do with that car.
More and more I keep thinking I should keep my 4 Runner. And I would but I think the glares I get from the volunteers when it sails though a carefully prepared snow berm at a rally cross event are starting to get to me :) and still, if it was a 5 speed I probably would keep it, but I've about had it with automatics, it's just no fun to drive around a track and murder on brakes because of all the nastly little left foot tricks you have to do to get it to corner. Plus the price of gas has kept me from doing any long road trips in it for 2 years now. At least another Toyota is a Devil I sort of know vs. a Devil I never met before. I believe my next car after this one will be a Subaru, and I don't think will bother with a Forester either, that Impreze TS wagon is a whole lot of car for a lot less money and it's what I'll be pining after for next time. Maybe I will even get lucky and a Subaru dealer will open up here, we had one about 10 years go but they folded and no one ever stepped in to replace them. If there was a dealer here I think I would look past the problems reported and still buy one, but with no mechanics around here having much of a clue about Subarus I jsut can't take the plung with my limited funds.
P.S. One of the service guys at work told me I should get the TS, a car is a car and any mechanic should be able to work on it. I showed him a picture of a stock TS under the hood:
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He said, "Uh, nevermind." :)
Double P.S., he drives a 1982 Honda Civic with 381,000 kms on it. All you need to fix it is an ajustable wrench and a hammer.
For those who do not have OE or Quick View Plus to decipher the attached .eml document, here is the gist, minus header info.
~~~~~~~~~ Dear Mr. Hayes:
Thank you for visiting the Subaru Web site and for your inquiry. I have the specifications available to me for the 2003 and 2004 model years. For the 2003 and 2004 Forester specifications, it shows roller bearing as the type of rear axle unit driving wheel bearing.
I will need to consult with other departments for an answer to your exact question. Once I have this information, I will contact you again. Thanks for your patience!
Best wishes,
John J. Mergen Subaru of America, Inc.
----------------------------------------------------------- YOUR ORIGINAL MAIL:
In what year did the Subaru Forester change rear wheel bearing from ball to roller?? Thank you Ed Hayes ~~~~~~~~~
That just plain sucks. I'm feeling luckier now. Sorry for your rotten experience with them. I doubt I would touch another one if I had your experience. SOA better get off the couch and do something for folks having problems like that, or they will be losing not just some good customers, but their future may be in jeopardy. Imagine: a great all wheel drive system down the tubes. (Stranger things have happened!)
I'm an old man and over my life have worried about many things. Fortunately, most of them never happened. I suspect you're fixing something that ain't broke. Love my 04 Forester, at 16K miles. Love the Climate control system, but most of all, LOVE that auto-dimming mirror! (a surprise to me, too!)
At 35, I'm *not* an old man, but I am without doubt a cantankerous curmudgeon. I tend to be very set in my ways, and not at all liking of new and different things. When my Forester was delivered, it, too, had an auto-dimming mirror. I almost demanded that the dealer put a regular mirror in its place on the spot, but in a rare moment of open-mindedness decided to give it a couple of weeks. And I'm glad I did. Now I'm wondering why they don't make the outside mirrors auto-dim like the inside one does...
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