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How many of you out there have had a front wheel bearing failure.
Did you ever find out what actually caused it?
I am a little worried about this as I lost the front wheel of a drum braked Marina many years ago when the bearings on the n/side seized and have seen an Allegro have the same happen(yes,they use the same bearings).
I get the advisory every year that the front bearings are loose,yet they are set to what the factory manual states.

Hi,

I must admit to setting up the front wheel bearings to how they feel rather than using the factory setting, i've done it this way on all my cars with no failures and no advisories. Could your torque wrench be giving spurious readings? how does the wheel feel to you when you 'rock' it?

Rob.

I sometimes get advisories on loose wheel bearings because many testers have no experience of taper roller bearings.

Alas, most mechanics out there these days are too young to have even seen a tapered roller bearing!
In fact they are totally lost if they cant plug in their OBD2 diagnostic box of tricks.
Indeed, they're not able to work on anything built before last Tuesday!

Unless the tester is old enough to have worked on proper rear wheel drive cars on a regular basis (I.E.when TR-7s were a current model) I'd take the testers advisory with a grain of salt.

Never had a failure on a TR7, did have one many years ago on another car but they will generally get noisy and give you plenty of warning before they fail. Funny enough I did have that same testers comment last week when I got my MOT. He just suggested it might be worth going up one "notch" on that castellated washer thing with the split pin.

Always set mine by feel rather than the workshop manual.

I too, set my bearings by feel on the TR7. On my TR6, I did have a half-shaft depart and with it took the wheel/brake set-up. This was at road speed while on my very short honeymoon getaway. I cemented my relations with the father-in-law by phoning for parts and tools to be sent up to our destination, rather than cash to get us going! (it was the only "professional" piece I had someone else do on the rebuild)

I have always found wheel or axle bearings, tapered or roller, give a fully audible warning well before they fail. Of course you have to be listening to your car to hear it. A little story about wheel bearings.

My son recently had a problem with the front wheel bearings on his Ford Ranger 4WD crew cab ute, one vehicle that still has them. He is one of these funny people who go looking for impossible tracks & small rivers to drive through, to prove they can do it.

One side developed a rumble which was not improved by adjusting. As he was still playing sailor boy in the navy he was getting it serviced by the Ford dealer. A service requirement on the Ranger is to clean & repack the front wheel bearings every 20,000 or 40,000 kilometres, so he mentioned the bearings were getting noisy when he put it in for a service which included a bearing regrease.

They were still rumbling after the service, & was told "they all do that sir" in that condescending tone some service advisers use. He made the time to check them that night & found not only had they not been greased as required & charged for in his service, they were actually rusty. That will teach him to go driving through deep water.

Being of an argumentative nature, he took some photo's of his rusty, & not repacked wheel bearings & emailed them to the Ford dealer, & to Ford Australia, along with a copy his service receipt.

Ford were quite upset at their dealer being caught not doing the work required in their service schedule, & made the dealer replace all his wheel bearings free of charge.

I wonder if that dealer now does the work they charge for, & if they now have a mechanic who can recognise the sound of a failing wheel bearing. Perhaps they should have bothered to find out they were dealing with a marine engineer, rather than a seaman, & then listened to his request.

Hasbeen

Never trust a garage. I adjust by feel not a torque wrench. I go through a few split pins but they are cheap.

Thanks for the replies.
I took it for a spin on Sunday and when I got up to a certain speed the thought crossed my mind and made me slow down(can`t say the speed for obvious reasons).
I must be getting old.