Have a 1996 in very good condition with 65k on the odometer. I have had it a little over a year. I am planning on doing new rotors, pads and ss brake lines one of these days. My question is how long are front wheel bearings good for and how do you tell when they need replacing? Does it take a whole new hub or can I just change the bearing in the hub? No noise that I'm aware of so far but I also wear two hearing aids so there might be noise I don't hear. I thought as long as I have everything off for brake job, probably should look at bearings too. I have already replaced shocks, fuel pump and alternator. Fun car. Tx Randy

 

There are several signs. Mainly noises. Usually driving down the road straight, there will be a howl or groan going straight down the road and it will go away when turning (loading) the wheels.

Alternatively, you can put the wheel on, get it in the air and do wiggle movements by placing your hands on the outside of the wheel at 9 & 3 and 12 and 6. Just rock it back and forth. You'll be able to tell if there is excessive play.

 

Years ago I remember having to clean and regrease front wheel bearings about every 30k miles. (Yes I'm older) How long do these integral hubs normally last these days? Randy

 

The C4 has wheel hubs on the front (and back), as you know. They don't generally go bad in the front since they're sealed and don't have a driveshaft hole behind the steering knuckle. The Corvette was one of the first cars to get sealed wheel hubs like this... as almost every other GM car at the time had steering knuckles with the bearings on the spindle... which as you said, you'd have to clean and repack with grease in your palm.. haha.

Generally speaking though, you shouldn't expect them to go bad with the mileage you have. Easiest way to tell though is to jack up the front end, put some painters tape on the fender and the wheel, and spin the wheel to see how many rotations you get. It's rare for them to both be bad... but assuming you don't have a sticking caliper and your brakes are in good repair, the wheel should make a couple of rotations. If the wheel barely makes it around... then your wheel hub is starting to go bad. Either that or your brake is sticking... but like I said, confirm first your brakes are good.

Unfortunately, the hubs will start to go bad before you actually hear anything. In the front, you may feel the car want to pull to one side... but if it's one of the ones in the rear, it may be less obvious. You may feel like the car just doesn't have the "pep" that it should. Wheel hubs don't really have the same feel that spindle bearings have, unfortunately... so by the time a wheel can be visibly shaken left / right and up and down... the sealed bearings would be so shot as to be making tons of noise and grinding.

I made my 14 year old daughter change out one of the wheel hubs in my old Explorer. She ran a test to see how many rotations she could get for each wheel. The driver's side wheel was shot (which I knew), and you can see the stark difference in the number of rotations per wheel...



I know someone is going to totally lose their mind and say I'm a horrible person because I shared a link to a Ford Explorer, and the C4 Corvette was God's gift to the Earth and it requires extreme precision the likes no one has ever seen before... but... yeah, it's basically the exact same thing. Take the wheel off, remove some bolts in the back, hub comes off... you plop a new one in, and go to town. You don't need to go to Page 7b-32 subsection 123123.24a of the Code of Federal Regulations, of the Pious and Holy Service Manual (which I did buy for my Corvette, to be clear)... only thing you need to know are the torque specifications for the bolts... don't want to screw that up. Otherwise, it's not rocket science.

 

I recall packing these bearings in the early 70's Mopars I used to work on in the early/mid 2000s. We could identify the bad bearings by driving to open area and moving the steering wheel back and forth while driving forward. When the weight of the car was on the bad side, the sound would get worse. When on the better side it would get quieter. Seems like the ball joint wouldn't last long is those things back then, especially in the vans where the pitman arms would go bad as well too.

I cant provide an idea of how long a bearing on the C4 would last, although mine has 100k+ and appears to be on it's originals.

 

82 TA. funny comments, but true. Thanks for the explanation.

 

My take, there is no mileage where a wheel bearing will go bad, it's all use case dependent. 100k highway miles they may still be tight and good. Alternatively, 10k miles of autocross and track use might trash them. If you hit lots of potholes that will speed up wear vs driving on nice smooth roads.

YMMV. I'd get the car up in the air and wiggle test it.

 

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That was one of the issues I was facing with the Mopars, even years ago. The Chinese aftermarket parts didn't last nearly as long as the originals. I even recall metallurgic issues with the radiator, the metals were not "mixed" and I could see streaks of copper.

 

When I owned a C4 1989 and sold with 90,000 miles and never had problem with hub bearing. Yes they had little play, but it always aligned properly and since I supervised a service department my car well maintained. I always asked the tech's and their reply they're good to go.

 

Just had it up on a lift today changing out trans fluid (no flush, just drain and refill) and wheel bearings still nice and tight as I could not wiggle them either way. Thanks for all the comments. i obviously will leave them alone - if it ain't broke, don't fix it.