So, you are saying the lug nut torque may be deforming the hub? From what I found on the web it happens on the left side. My OEM left went bad so I replaced right and left sides with Timken bearings figuring Ford may have a poor supplier. Left side is starting to make noise again.
Left wheel bearing - again?
About 20k miles ago I changed out both front bearings because the left side was making noise. Starting to hear some bad noise from the left front again. Only 82,000 on the odometer.
When I ran a Google search on the subject it came up with dozens and dozens of early wheel bearing failures. I wonder how many of you had replaced yours before the clock hit 100,000. I've owned several front wheel drive vehicles and never had one eat up bearings like this.
I wonder if the steering knuckle is deformed? Maybe Ford made some malformed parts? From what I have read on other sites the drivers side went bad on all of them. Usually the right side goes first because of the potholes, water, dirt and hitting curbs.
When I ran a Google search on the subject it came up with dozens and dozens of early wheel bearing failures. I wonder how many of you had replaced yours before the clock hit 100,000. I've owned several front wheel drive vehicles and never had one eat up bearings like this.
I wonder if the steering knuckle is deformed? Maybe Ford made some malformed parts? From what I have read on other sites the drivers side went bad on all of them. Usually the right side goes first because of the potholes, water, dirt and hitting curbs.
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Replaced a number of bearings over the decades. All sorts of sounds emanate from that area of the drive train. Growling, scraping/rotating noise like muck in a coffee can. One car made no sound at all. Suddenly, one morning, my brakes were going halfway to the floor on the first try then OK a second later. The brake rotor was pushing the piston back into the caliper which increased the travel.
The element that makes me believe there is a defective part on some of the Escapes is this. There are so many over a vast number of years with high mileage and no problems. Similar to the problems I had on my 2 Contours. Ford installed the black plastic impellers in some of the 1995s. These exploded after a while. Back then Ford laid off their quality department and it took years to catch the goof up. The black dye was causing the plastic to fail prematurely.
The element that makes me believe there is a defective part on some of the Escapes is this. There are so many over a vast number of years with high mileage and no problems. Similar to the problems I had on my 2 Contours. Ford installed the black plastic impellers in some of the 1995s. These exploded after a while. Back then Ford laid off their quality department and it took years to catch the goof up. The black dye was causing the plastic to fail prematurely.
Found this neat troubleshooting table online. Since the problems seem to be on the driver side (left) I wonder if the bore is out of round or deformed? Next time it is apart I'll measure it. Only thing unique to the left side is the steering knuckle and driveshaft.
http://www.skf.com/portal/skf/home/prod ... _07_020200
http://www.skf.com/portal/skf/home/prod ... _07_020200
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