Recurring Rear Wheel Bearing Failure

Hey P5 faithful

Been loving my car lately, admiring how sharp it looks having just being detailed, put new rubber on, etc, Oh so happy with myself, and that this evening Im coming home from work and I noticed what I had feared MIGHT happen, the tell-tale rumblings of a bad wheel bearing in my rear-right hand side.

A little back story here.. bought the car w/ 24000 miles on it. Immediatly noticed, damn man, this thing sounds like s*** on the freeway. Take it in, bad wheel bearing on the left rear. fixed under warrenty. couple of months later, same thing on the right rear, fixed inder warrenty.

So everything is great since then, loving the car. I dont drive crazy or anything, just day to day city commuting lately. Car now has 42k on it. And Im pretty sure the exact same situation with the bearings is goin down.

Odviously I was too optimistic thinking that they were bad from the get go, defective parts, wont happen again. Something is *causing* the rear bearings to go out, but what? Now I've got to get to the bottom of this, warrenty is out soon and I sure as hell am not going to replace the bearings every 20 thousand miles.

Soooo... any ideas here folx? the only think I can even think could be 'user induced' is that I do have rims on the car, 17" rota sub zeros. I have been repeatedly told however that the wheels should not have anything to do with wheel-bearing function. Im sure of course if I take it to my terrible mazda dealer in santa monica they will tell me its the wheels, all my fault and have to pay for them to fix it.

Aaanyways, Im bummed, I was so pleased for a while, I really hope this isnt the beginning of another fiasco with this problem (first time was a big pain in my ass) Really love the car but I really have had a lot of little issues pop up for the car being so new, which I am not so pleased with.

Hope someone can shed some proverbial light,

/Scott

I had one go out too,not sure why.

I'm at 60500 on stock wheel bearings and my car deals with the hell of the New York State Thruway and going to Boston and NYC with 17s.. I didn't know people had problems with these on proteges.

are your rims hubcentric or lugcentric?

lugcentric rims = BIG no on mazdas
explaination in FAQ

TheMAN said:

are your rims hubcentric or lugcentric?

lugcentric rims = BIG no on mazdas
explaination in FAQ

Click to expand...

Mine are 100% lugcentric

No problems so far, I've been looking for hubcentric rings for a while but the site that wheelmax.com pointed me to (can't remember the name at the moment) didn't have the size I need in stock. I should just get the measurements and have my dad do it up in CAD and fab it. What material (aluminum, steel, carbide ) would be best? I'm assuming aluminum would be good for the job since they do sell plastic hubcentric rings.

Plenty hubcentric on ebay cheap unless you seek some made from custom material.

Here's the site I mentioned before: http://www.justforwheels.com/index.jsp

They have a nice application search, but they just say "sorry we don't have any in stock" and don't actually tell me what size it is

I know the inner diameter I want is 72mm or something like that but I have no idea what the hub hole on my Exel wheels is. Oh well, I have plenty of time the wheels are off for the winter.

hubcentric?

TheMAN said:

are your rims hubcentric or lugcentric?

lugcentric rims = BIG no on mazdas
explaination in FAQ

Click to expand...

Hmmm, I honestly dont know that much (or anything) about wheel specs. What I do know is their 17", rota sub zeros, which seem to be fairly ubiquitious among p5 owners. Ill do some searching and try and find out.

So you chaps are saying aftermarket wheels definatly can play a part in wheel bearing failure? If thats true I think I may be closer to my answer.

thanx guys

/scott

findoe said:

Hmmm, I honestly dont know that much (or anything) about wheel specs. What I do know is their 17", rota sub zeros, which seem to be fairly ubiquitious among p5 owners. Ill do some searching and try and find out.

So you chaps are saying aftermarket wheels definatly can play a part in wheel bearing failure? If thats true I think I may be closer to my answer.

thanx guys

/scott

Click to expand...

When you search on ebay for hubcentric rings you'll probably come across the ebay store of discount tire direct. they have a buy it now that ends up being like 18.50 shipped, then you tell them what model car and wheels you have and they ship you the application you want. I checked with them via e-mail as they suggest in the auction to make sure they carry the fitment I needed. I won't know how well they work until Spring though, there's no way I could drive around on ecsta MXs right now

zverg said:

Mine are 100% lugcentric

No problems so far, I've been looking for hubcentric rings for a while but the site that wheelmax.com pointed me to (can't remember the name at the moment) didn't have the size I need in stock. I should just get the measurements and have my dad do it up in CAD and fab it. What material (aluminum, steel, carbide ) would be best? I'm assuming aluminum would be good for the job since they do sell plastic hubcentric rings.

Click to expand...

you might want to do stainless steel so that it doesn't rust into the lug hub, and it'll barely cause any issues with the alloy wheels

zverg said:

When you search on ebay for hubcentric rings you'll probably come across the ebay store of discount tire direct. they have a buy it now that ends up being like 18.50 shipped, then you tell them what model car and wheels you have and they ship you the application you want. I checked with them via e-mail as they suggest in the auction to make sure they carry the fitment I needed. I won't know how well they work until Spring though, there's no way I could drive around on ecsta MXs right now

Click to expand...

Guess Im still a little confused here. What is the purpose of hubcentric rings in my application? To eliminite wheel-bearing destroying wheel vibration? anyone else w/ subzeros have these? are they nessicary? Why are 'lugcentric' wheels no good on mazdas? couldnt find much on a google search.

Im starting to think maybe my wheels are killing my bearings.

thanx
s

findoe said:

Hmmm, I honestly dont know that much (or anything) about wheel specs. What I do know is their 17", rota sub zeros, which seem to be fairly ubiquitious among p5 owners. Ill do some searching and try and find out.

So you chaps are saying aftermarket wheels definatly can play a part in wheel bearing failure? If thats true I think I may be closer to my answer.

thanx guys

/scott

Click to expand...

take off your wheel, and look at the hole in the middle, if it is larger than the hub on the car (the part that sticks out in the center of all 5 lugs surrounding it), then you have a lug centric wheel... basically, lug centric wheels put tremendous stress on wheel bearings and can cause all sorts of vibration issues at high speeds.... I know many popular "cheap" aftermarket wheels like rotas for example, are lug centric so that they can "fit any car"

you're lucky your dealer even warrantied your wheel bearings at all since you have aftermarket wheels.... I assume it's the same dealer you bought the car from and your car came with the wheels?

findoe said:

Guess Im still a little confused here. What is the purpose of hubcentric rings in my application? To eliminite wheel-bearing destroying wheel vibration? anyone else w/ subzeros have these? are they nessicary? Why are 'lugcentric' wheels no good on mazdas? couldnt find much on a google search.

Im starting to think maybe my wheels are killing my bearings.

thanx
s

Click to expand...

it's to center the wheel so that even forces can be distributed over the wheel hub and bearing

dude, read the faq!

TheMAN said:

take off your wheel, and look at the hole in the middle, if it is larger than the hub on the car (the part that sticks out in the center of all 5 lugs surrounding it), then you have a lug centric wheel... basically, lug centric wheels put tremendous stress on wheel bearings and can cause all sorts of vibration issues at high speeds.... I know many popular "cheap" aftermarket wheels like rotas for example, are lug centric so that they can "fit any car"

you're lucky your dealer even warrantied your wheel bearings at all since you have aftermarket wheels.... I assume it's the same dealer you bought the car from and your car came with the wheels?

Click to expand...

Nope, bought the car used w/ 20k miles and the wheels were allready on. And the rear bearings were allready shot. I took it to a couple of dealers.. one wouldnt even look at it w/ the wheels, the other said no problem and didnt think that wheels could cause wheel bearings to fail. I guess the first dealer was right

I've always suspected the wheels had something to do with my problems but until now 'experts' on the subject have told me the wheels should have nothing to do w/ wheel bearing failure.

Im guessing all chances for a warrentied repair are well over, So I reckon Ill take it to my local independent shop. I have to do brake pads (and possibly rotors) anyways, I hear labor should be cheaper for this job if you do brakes at the same time, true or false?

now reading FAQ. thanx guys

s

is that avatar from ghost in a shell?

TheMAN said:

it's to center the wheel so that even forces can be distributed over the wheel hub and bearing

dude, read the faq!

Click to expand...

(thumb)

findoe said:

Nope, bought the car used w/ 20k miles and the wheels were allready on. And the rear bearings were allready shot. I took it to a couple of dealers.. one wouldnt even look at it w/ the wheels, the other said no problem and didnt think that wheels could cause wheel bearings to fail. I guess the first dealer was right

I've always suspected the wheels had something to do with my problems but until now 'experts' on the subject have told me the wheels should have nothing to do w/ wheel bearing failure.

Im guessing all chances for a warrentied repair are well over, So I reckon Ill take it to my local independent shop. I have to do brake pads (and possibly rotors) anyways, I hear labor should be cheaper for this job if you do brakes at the same time, true or false?

now reading FAQ. thanx guys

s

Click to expand...

try the warranty repair first... then do the brakes somewhere else... although doing the brakes is half the labor of a wheel bearing, there's still more involved to a wheel bearing..... it's kind of labor intensive actually since most japanese cars like ours have sealed bearings that have to be pressed out

if you're replacing the pads, I recommend the OEM pads if you're not going to be doing any performance driving... they are worth the extra expense due to wider operating range and have better safety margins because they are not prone to fading as easily... they also create less dust than many cheap aftermarket "stock" replacements