So I drove to work yesterday and noticed some vibration from the wheels. I thought I threw a wheel weight so figured I would get it fixed over the weekend. I felt the wheels when I got to work and felt no excessive heat. Long story short, about 5 miles from my house, doing 60, i hear a loud bang and the rear of the car dropped, kinda like a blowout. I pulled to the side of the road and looked right. My passenger side wheel flew past me and off the roadway, going about 20 mph. Like a bad movie or commercial I inspected the tire and parts are near slick, so something in the rear froze. Not sure if it was a bearing or caliper. Ill have to wait until this weekend to find out. From visual rotor is done and all 5 lugs sheared off of the hub, tire toast and rim bent. Already ordered rims and tires.

On a side note. Has anyone heard of a car manufacturer called Super Auto? They sell a rear hub with bearing already pressed in.

 

Holy sheeeet! That could have been a lot worse than it was man, glad it wasn't.
What kind of wheels did you order for them now?

Never heard of that company, sounds legit haha

 

Holy wow

 

It was unexpected so I went cheap as possible. Tire rack had Axis Sport XM wheels on sale and I had Sumitomo HTR A/S P02 put on them. Total was a little over a grand.

 

Had this happen on a GTi many years ago, the wheel bearing seized up and wheel had enough momentum to shear the lug bolts. Scary ****.

Rockauto sells a hub with a Timken bearing pressed onto it. Might as well do the other side at the same time, if not all of the bearings. The fronts don't need to be pressed in unless you're an X owner.

 

I checked Rockauto and was unable to find the whole assembly. Can you help out with a part number, please?

 

This is my worst nightmare.

 

How often do the bearings need replacing. Although my coupe is running great. I'd like to do some preventive maintenance or at least keep a set of bearings just in case.

 

Wow, I'm glad you're OK. Sorry to hear about this.

 

Thanks, 205k on original bearings. They were gonna fail, but i didnt know it would be that dramaric.

 

Were they at the point that if you jacked the car up you could wiggle the wheel around? Mine have been there before for weeks, but this never happened...

Are you positive it was the bearing siezing that caused all of that shear force?

I'm curious, not doubting.

Glad you made it out alive, it's amazing that there was no car body damage.

 

Im not sure. I have to replace the hub because I figure it was probably damaged when the studs were sheared off. I wont know for sure what happened until I can tear it apart. That wont be till Saturday.

 

I think I drove around for 10K miles on a bad wheel bearing before getting around to replacing it. Usually every time I pulled the bearing apart, I found galling in the race which contributed to the roughness and noise.


I gotta be honest, after pulling a few of these things apart, i'm not sure if it's possible for it to suddenly seize instantly. There would have to be some serious heat in that bearing to instant weld the ball bearings to the race and bushing. I would think intertia would prevent this from happening as well. I'd have to think that bearing would be screaming before that happened and being loose as hell would be as lot more likely.

My first suspect was the differential. In my days drag racing Mustangs I've seen plenty go boom and lock. I'm very curious to what you'll find when you pull this all apart.

 

The passenger side wheel still spins. Would both sides seize or just 1? If I raise the rear and put it in gear and the opposite side turns, can I assume the rear diif is good. When it happened I was going uphill su I assumed the limited slip used the off wheel for power and thats how I got off the road.

 

So, I bought the hubs I mentioned earlier. They are being sold by a Napa store in New York, so hopefully they are good quality. I bought 2 centric rotors and centric semi metallic pads. All in for $140, $1200 including wheels and tires. The hubs make me kinda concerned based on price, but I will let you know if they seem alright. I know centric is quality so i have no concern there.

Hubs

http://m.ebay.com/itm/291527189539?_mwBanner=1