'05 Ford Focus Rear Wheel Bearing Fiasco

At about 60,000 miles my ‘05 Ford Focus had a driver’s rear bearing that started growling. I went to Advance Auto and got a new drum with included/installed bearing because I had no way to press out the old and press in the new bearing. 60 some bucks.

About 20,000 miles later that same wheel started whining again. This time, thinking that maybe Advance wasn’t the best place to shop, I went to NAPA. $67…and the NAPA part had instructions to rotate the wheel (no less than 10 times) in the opposite direction while torquing the nut to 174 ft/lbs. So I did.

About 40,000 miles later, I again experienced a bearing noise at the drivers rear. Having had better experience with the previous NAPA drum/bearing, I went back to them. I installed the new NAPA part(s).

The new NAPA bearing howled right out of the box – like a dog howling at an ambulance siren. Believing in NAPA, I rotated the tires - no help. Then I had the alignment checked – which was dead on. So I took drum/bearing back to NAPA and told them I’d like to try another.

The second drum/bearing was worse than the first. I scratched my head...what else could be happening back there. It's not the alignment. It's not the tire/wheel. What else is there? There’s nothing else that could be causing the whining. It had to be the bearing. I disassembled the bearing from the drum I first took off. I would have to have had a press to get the outer race out, but I could remove the bearings from the hub by tapping them out. The bearings looked OK, but the race for both the inner and outer bearings was not shiny and bright - not as bad as I expected, but none-the-less not clean.

So I went online and looked up the bearing for the ‘old' drum knowing I'd need to somehow get that outer race out. Wow! I could get a drum with bearing for $38. But there were horror stories in the reviews about how crappy the included Chinese bearings were, several reviews nearly identical to my experiences. I was hesitant to order a new drum with Chinese bearing. Here's a few reviews from various places.

Bearings have always been noisy. Installed June 2017, and failed after only 1 year (August 2018). Don't recommend these.

WARNING WARNING WARNING "Will Robinson" (if your old enough to know that reference) Ok to start with I was dumb enough to have tried these in the past and had to return them time after time for garbage bearing that are installed in them. (Note you can torque to 174 Ft pounds all day long while turning the drum while installing and it wont change anything) POINT IS BEARINGS ARE GARBAGE and expect to get perhaps 10000 to 20000 miles at most if your lucky.

I'm on my 2nd pair of these and it's already making a lot of noise. I can't recommend this.

in 2 years i have warranted 5 of these parts for bad bearrings. yes 5.they go bad and become unsafe to drive on. Then you have to replace the nuts. only good to torque 4 times each to 172ftlbs.

This bearing is worse then the bad one that was replaced

Six months later... bearing has failed.

This bearing is worse then the bad one that was replaced

So I bought a bench top press from Harbor Fright (Freight) with my 20% off coupon.

 https://www.harborfreight.com/6-ton-a-frame-bench-shop-press-1666.html

So now it was full steam ahead...well after a couple hours of assembling the press. If I wasn't dyslectic I might have had it ready in less than an hour. Knowing that I could now press bearings in/out I thought I'd try a bearing only from Amazon - despite the less than glowing reviews.

In order to press the old bearing out, one first needs to remove a ring, and then a snap ring.

I pressed in the generic Amazon bearing and found it too howled.

Not willing to give up yet, I ordered a Timkin bearing which is what I should have done in the first place.

I pressed out the race from the original problem hub. After freezing the new Timkin overnight to facilitate an easier press into the drum, I (easily) pressed in the Timkin. Then I mounted the hub turning it against the nut at least 10 times while torquing to 174 ft/lbs. I was soooo relieved to know I'd finally conquered the growling bearing.

Took her out on the road for a test drive. N-I-C-E...or was it? Eventually the bearing growl returned, seemingly worse than before. I pressed out the Timkin bearing and prepared it for return.

By the way - torquing the axle nut has little to do with the set of the bearings. They are mated in the outer race with their inner races in contact with each other. They are held together by a clip - seen with a gap in the pic below. The bearings also have a very thin grease seal on each side of the assembly.

Desperate, I went online and ordered an OEM Ford drum/bearing assembly thinking I'd get better results from an OEM part. I got tired of waiting after 4 days and was ready to cancel the order when it showed up on my doorstep. Nothing could stop me now.

At this point I had the procedure and all the wrenches down pat. Jack her up, remove the wheel, undo the axle nut, pull the drum...less than 5 minutes. Open the box with the new OEM drum and find this one wasn't as advertised and doesn't include the bearing. Well 5hit!

As I was contemplating my frustrating predicament I noticed that the wear lines were almost showing on the passenger rear tire. I reassembled the drivers side and jacked up the passenger rear. I spun the tire to get a look at it 360.  Yup, it was time to start thinking about a new tire, but also, the spinning tire jerked several times on it's way to a stop. Spin it again and the same thing -- hesitation several times as it stopped.

I went into the shop and downed a beer, then removed the rear wheel and drum from the passenger side. Then I pressed the bearing out of the hub...and pressed the 'old' Timken bearing  back in (that was packaged and ready to return), mounted the drum honoring the minimum 10 turns in the opposite direction, then put the tire/wheel back on. Then took her out for a test run.

Guess what? No more noise - from either side. Go figure!