2002 Subaru WRX front wheel bearings...

[breakaway500]

Not being familiar with Subaru track cars..I need to replace the front wheel bearings on one. It's a 2002 WRX that just had both front wheel bearing replaced..(not by me) but one has failed again in only a couple of hours of track use. The car is stock on street tires/wheels, so no unusual heavy stress.
I'm thinking they used chinese wheel bearings on the replacements, as I know chinese manufactured wheel bearings don't last on my Focus track cars (or street car for that matter) at all. Timkens last for many years. Has this been what owners of Suabrus have found? I can't find anything but chinese bearings in the parts stores..so I am going to go Subaru dealer sourced..and hope they are of quality. Thanks for any imput.

[4EyedFoxbody]

The typical early failure cause on hub style wheel bearings is improper axle nut torque. When you replace the bad bearing make sure to hand torque to Subaru spec. I would also suggest you loosen and re-torque the other side as well. The front axle nut torque on that application is 140 ft/lbs and 174 ft/lbs for rear axle. Hope this helps.

[ED9man]

Chinesium bearings, re-using hubs, improper installation, take your pick! There are no good aftermarket hubs available. Koyo, Timken, SKF all good bearings as you probably know if trying to save a few bucks over genuine. Also if the knuckle is really awful and rusty, new ones from Subaru are fairly reasonable, and saves labor on removal of the old parts.

[agrabau]

Check the hubs too to make sure they aren't worn. Sometimes a bad inner race or overheating will wear the hub and the inner race will fit loosely on the hub.

We used OEM bearings and then removed the OEM grease and replaced it with NEO high temp for our track customers. Early WRX bearings don't last too long. Probably 5 track weekends if you have really good tires and work the car really hard. Longer on OEM tires I'm sure.