Cautionary wheel bearing info

[carlgo]

When I bought my 05 3.0 about 15K miles ago I thought I heard a bit of bearing noise from the L/F. The tech thought it was tire noise and we spun it in the air and felt nothing.

The noise got just a hair worse over the miles, and yesterday the dealer tech did in fact diagnose it as a bad bearing and it was replaced under CPO. The noise went away.

Evidently, the X bearing made noise because it was defective, rather than failing catastrophically because of lack of grease or actual broken or rough parts. My guess is that it may have been built a touch loose, enough to make noise, but not actually broken or worn out enough to just grind to a halt in any dramatic way.

So, these are sometimes hard to diagnose on the X. Spinning the wheel is tough because of all the drive shafts, differentials, etc that keep it from really spinning "free". Still, I could not feel any roughness or play at all.

So, if your X has that subtle sound, one that changes in corners but doesn't change on different road surfaces, then think bearings. Don't expect that the symptoms will be dramatic, at least for a long time. It is hard to diagnose and would be even more difficult on Xs with big low profile aggressive tires.

BTW, they replace the hub and bearing, as well as the usual seals, etc. The parts are listed separately, so it is not an assembly.