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Hey guys. I'm having some problems with the rear wheel hub/bearing on my civic (2004 model) I had a new one put on a while ago, and it was gone in about 2 days, as bad as the old one with 190000 kms on it, it was a brand new bearing! I got it refunded and bought another one. Same thing once again, it lasted about an hour. It was torqued on to 134 ft-lbs. While i'm not a mechanic I can do easier repairs myself and I've replaced rear hubs on cars before. What could be the problem here? I have absolutely no idea what is causing the car to go through wheel bearings like this

 
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Factory parts?
Or no-name, white-box, made in China crap?





http://www.clubcobra.com/forums/all-...ade-china.html

 
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It was not a factory honda bearing, but, it did have the same bearing in the hub that came out of the original honda hub, ntn 227 or something like that. I never cheaped out and bought low quality bearings. Payed over $100 cdn for it.

 
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Only other things I can think of is setting the weight of the car on it before it was tightened, or a bent spindle.

Warranty the parts again?


Anyone else got ideas?

 
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The weight of the car was off the ground when it was torqued on. I can't see the spindle/shaft being bent as the car is never abused, but I guess anything is possible. I really need help on this!

And I may try to warranty the part again, it's worth a try but I don't want to mess up another new bearing before finding out the problem.

 
Rep Power: 517

I'm thinking "It's ONLY a hub and bearing, it HAS to be something simple...."


What symptom do you have?
Noise?
A bearing noise--99% of the time it will sound like an airplane flying beside you, and get louder and increase pitch as you increase your speed. Swerve side to side and it MAY change in intensity as the side loading changes.

Inspected the "failed" bearing to see what happened? If the bearing is bad, you can almost always feel roughness in one of the races when you turn them by hand. If there is no roughness felt, then maybe it isn't a bearing problem at all.

I mean, maybe you don't have a bearing problem at all.....?

Like maybe a choppy tire? They can make noise almost like a bad bearing...
And I have seen someone replace bearings only to find the tires were the true cause of the noise. (And do this on multiple cars.)

If you jack up the wheel in question and spin the tire by hand, a bearing should still make noise and you would hear it "grumble" using a stethoscope on the inside of the knuckle. Compare to the quiet side, same method.
A choppy tire can't make any noise at all if it is off of the ground.

 
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I'm 99% sure it is the bearing because it makes a good loud airplane-like sound, and I can take the wheel and shift it slightly in and out, so to speak, just as the old one was before I replaced it. It's strange I know that. I Guess the tire is a possibility but it seems like a bearing to me. I just don't want to exchange it under warranty once again and then a day later have it wore out.

One more question, how easy is it for the spindle/shaft to be slightly bent? I can't see it bending very easily. This has got me stumped. I need it fixed soon because the car is highway driven some good distances sometimes and I don't want to have a wheel bearing pop out at 100km/h.

 
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Yeah if the wheel moves in and out its not a tire, there should be zero play. A few things could cause this but considering the noise is common for bad bearings and the fact that it went away temporarily after you replaced the bearing 2x I would look to that as the cause.

You would have to hit a pothole or curb pretty hard with that corner of the car to bend the spindle.

So both bearings you got were the same brand? It's possible the manufacturer had a bad batch and quality control didn't pick up on it.

Did you replace the whole hub or just the bearing? I forget if the rear bearing is removable. If you took it to a shop to have it pressed in its also possible they messed it up twice. I've heard of people pressing a bearing in the wrong way many many times.

 
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thats not 100%

take it to your dealer before you waste alot more time and money on it

 
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That's the thing, there is play in the wheel so it has to be a bearing. And yes, it was the same identical bearing that I had replaced. It's a complete hub, just pops on the spindle. I'm hoping the spindle isn't bent because I don't have the money right now to replace it. And it's something that somebody with a bit of mechanical know-how should be able to do, a wheel hub. Just jack up the car, take off the wheel, drum brake cover, that metal cap, unbolt the axle nut, pop off the old hub, put the new one on, torque on the axle nut and re-install everything else. That correct?

It needs to be fixed soon. It's driving me up the wall because right now it seems the same thing will happen again if I get a garage to put on the bearing.

 
Rep Power: 517

It would take one hell of a hit to bend a spindle stub, that sucker is like about an inch and a half thick....
I don't work in a bodyshop so I haven't actually seen what damage it DOES take to bend one, but I have seen a lot of wheel damage done without hurting the spindle. I have seen wheels bent into the shape of a stop sign with no damage to the spindle.

I would think there would be some sort of wrong feeling about how the hub slides on the spindle if it were bent (the fit is very close, almost no room for error), or a wrong feeling about how the nut tightens up.


I think it is awfully hard to screw up the install, it's straightforward and relatively low tech simple. One big nut......So I might still vote for low quality bearing/hub assembly. Counterfeit parts?

 
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My thoughts exactly on that spindle, it's pretty solid and that car hasn't hit anything on the road bad enough to bend that, and it's never been in an accident. I mean the hub slid over the shaft without a hitch, as it should. The nut went on as it should. It's what i'm starting to lean to is a bad batch of bearings because they are identical bearings. They don't seem to be low quality with ntn bearings inside the hub. My buddy bought a $25 hub for his 2005 civc and has around 60000 kms on it with no problems.

 
Rep Power: 517

Probably counterfeit.
Buy factory parts.


From this site: http://www.vbearings.com/sales/657/

"However how to distinguish counterfeit bearings from original NTN beairngs? Some counterfeit bearings look so much like the real thing that only a trained technician can tell them apart. However, the poor quality of counterfeit bearings – and the risks they pose to equipment – can sometimes be revealed after just hours of use"






Other sites:

http://www.sindabearing.com/ntn_bear...12/07-307.html

http://www.ntnamerica.com/website/do...r-Vol9-3-2.pdf

http://www.toyotanation.com/forum/10...e-vs-real.html

http://www.asiabearings.com/Bearings...ng-damage.html

 
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Thanks for all the input ezone! Anybody else have any more ideas what could cause it to eat bearings on the back?

 
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So you took ezones advice and bought factory wheel bearings, installed them and you still destroyed the bearings?

 
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$71 USD

http://www.hondapartscheap.com/parts...r-brake-drum-1

 
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42200-S5A-A21 is for DX/LX
42200-S5A-008 is for EX/GX
I'm guessing the difference is ABS or not.