Originally posted by sdowney717:
The old bearing design tapered rollers with a separate seal my be old design, but they were reliable, cheap, and easy to repair. Now you have to buy the entire hub with bearing. So when these cars go in for service, now they need hubs, bearings and drums since I am sure most shops would have just destroyed the old drums and hubs and told the owner an automatic price.

Drum $50
Hub $45
Laber $100

I bought this car up in New York. We used to live in Buffalo in the 60's and 70's. I worked on my own cars as a kid and I dont remember this terrible a time with rusted wheels. This car had brand new tires and It went thru one winter and rusted together this tightly. I definitely put some antiseize on the parts.

I was thinking about these wheel bearings. On a double roller taper setup, the bearings are spaced 4 to 5 inchs apart and have a large grease reservoir. The new style has split races an inch apart and a tiny reservoir. IMO, they are more failure prone due to loading and grease issues and are inferior design and probably a money maker for service.



I'm sure that you will believe whatever you want to believe.

Having worked as a technician before the advent of sealed bearings, I can say with no qualification whatsoever that the problems with wheel bearings has dramatically reduced with sealed bearings. It is probably in the neighborhood of 10% of what it used to be.

Jim Johnson 98 SVT 03 Escape Limited