I know they're must be threads on this...but
my search came up with nothing (mobile site
never works the same).

my friends with Miatas install new wheel
bearings at LEAST once per year. I never run
R-comps, but is this something I should be
doing often as well? I only run R-S3s at track/
auto-x. I do 2-3 a-X events per year and three
track days, if I'm lucky. car has 115k miles on
the chassis. I've owned the car less than a
year, previous owner never tracked it.

can any of the track guys please chime in?

thanks in advance.

 

wheel bearings dont wear that fast on evos. on the evo 8's ive been replacing the ORIGINALS a lot over the past few years, but that means they are usuaully 6-8 years old. including some of heavily tracked cars. if your at 115k miles and they are original, i would check em out often, feel how smooth they feel, and see if there is any play. my guess is you'll be getting close to the end of their life if they are tracked.

 

I was thinking the same due to mileage. I'd like to replace them once and hopefully not for another 50k miles or so. I had a front bearing go bad on my last MR @ 60k, so I wasn't sure how tough these things are.

 

I am amazed my wheel bearings are still good... Mitsu must have done them right.

 

I'm thinking it's the rears that are more prone to failure.

My car sees track and autoX exclusively and I've had 1 rear go bad. I think Marty G (SCCA champ) has had several rears fail over the years. I seem to recall he replaces them on a PM kind of basis.

I did have a front go bad, but believe it was a direct result of wacking a curb sideways.

I check them regularly, and they usually howl pretty loudly when they are on the way out.

 

I replace the fronts prolly on a 5:1 ratio to the rears. Much more weight and load on the fronts.

 

I'm finding others that say they have replaced rears, not so much fronts. hmm...
the one front I replaced was due to previous owner smacking a curb as well. it didn't ever make noise, though. only had vibration from 65-72mph which would go away during left-handed turns.

 

Depends who you ask. Most drivers arent pushing hard everywhere, lap after lap. Tire compound also plays a factor among other things. When i was racing my Evo id replace all 4 about every year. For HPDE guys id say if your lap times are good and youre pushing hard in the corners, running rcomps or even sticky street tires, running 3+ sessions a day and 14+ events a year, id change them every year.

 

I'm sad to say I don't get to drive that much. I can definitely see how a lot of driving, on sticky tires, could wear bearings prematurely. that was my concern. I also don't use anything less than a 140 treadwear rating. I should be okay for a while.

 

evo IX with 35,000 miles and I just did all 4. car has seen about 60 track days and 150 auto-x's. the right rear started making noise and I didn't want to chance a bearing going out at speed.

 

More weight up front but the front bearings are substaintially bigger than the rears.

Tracking with crappy/no brake ducting is the only way i could see killing properly installed front bearings. But they'd have to be very hot to melt the seals.

 

Having installed more bearings on evos then everyone in this thread combined, I'm just speaking from experience

 

I think you should share any tricks you have to getting stuck bearings out from the spindle. Or perhaps you don't have those problems down south.

 

 

perhaps brake heat is more of an issue for track cars than I realize but my experience is that when heat is no factor the front bearings can absolutely handle more abuse than the rears from a mechanical perspective despite the heavier weight on the front. To quantify our abuse, on a car with lots of camber, high spring rates, and hoosier A6's we put on average 250 autox runs per year for 6 years before a rear wheel bearing failed. The front bearings still passed the service manual check at that point.

I'm curious what percentage of the front bearings you've replaced have been due to actual bearing failure vs preventative maintenance or troubleshooting.