Freddie Two Bs

My car was making a bad noise which was diagnosed as a bad front left wheel bearing. Is it normal for a wheel bearing to be bad on one corner only, on a 37k mile car?

Dock

Maybe the right front bearing is also going bad, but just not bad enough yet to cause noise.

Both of my front wheel bearings needed replacing at about the same mileage as what you have on your car.

T10Chris

Yep it is possible. Could be age, could be extra wear, could be damaged from pothole large bump, etc...

I'd do as Dock suggest and replace both for peace of mind.

kmagnuss

My 99 C2 had similar issue at 35k miles. I see no reason to replace both if only one is bad. It's not like it's going to save you any labor.

T10Chris

I feel weird doing something on one side of an "axle" and not the other. Like it was halfway done, more of a peace of mind thing. You wouldn't replace brakes on one side, tires on one side... You're right though, it may not be necessary and probably won't hurt anything given that it isn't something that can have significant effect like brakes/tires example I gave.

Insert stereotypical "It's a Porsche, do it right" comment here.

Carlo_Carrera

Yes, the OEM bearings used at the time the car was built were not very good. The replacements are much sturdier.

Freddie Two Bs

Thanks. The shop suggested that we only do the bad one for now, so I only did that one. With my luck, no doubt that in a couple of months I'll have to do the other one too!

kmagnuss

I'm sure it's different, but on the C2's it was more common for the passenger side to go bad and not the driver's side (same on the 986). So maybe you won't have to mess with the other side any time soon. Who knows?

Carlo_Carrera

Doing them both at once does not save you any labor cost so no loss doing just the one.

Carlo_Carrera

That is interesting, the passenger side went first on my Turbo. The original OEM units were crap.

TommyT

Never had an issue doing just one side.

Macster

My Turbo has never needed wheel bearings (though I'm sure this mention of this fact just set the ***** in motion) but at around 80K miles my Boxster had a noisy wheel bearing. Heard it after putting new tires on the car.

Hard to know which side -- it was a rear wheel bearing -- and the advice I received from auto techs prior to this and what I had done in the past was to just replace both wheel bearings. And I told the shop owner to just replace both bearings. Shop owner advised me to not do this due to cost. (Around $400 at the time, back in 2004.)

After each of us road tested the car we agreed it was most likely coming from the left rear wheel bearing. He replaced the bearing and the noise was gone.

The other 3 bearings have held up just fine and that was 228K miles ago. The original bearings have 308K miles on them.

s-spiff

Easily could be just the left if you do a lot of freeway on/off ramps. Puts more pressure on the outside bearing.

Atrox

or turning into your driveway, fast food joint, parking garage,

r0nd3L

I just replaced both front wheel bearings few months ago on my 2002 with 33K miles. Driver's side had bad pitting and was super loud. I didn't have to do both sides, but since I was doing it myself, it was just few extra bucks. Car drives so much better and is much, much quieter.