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2014 - Bad wheel bearings? - SOLVED!

('14-'18)
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#41 ·
Also just had right rear bearing replaced on a 2014 forester at 57k. Covered under powertrain warranty.
Started as a very small humming noise right at 72mph noticed only on smooth pavement and audio off.
500 miles later humming noise was lower pitch and around 55mph at the loudest but also not heard with music on or on older pavement.
Lifted on the jack, all wheels spun around the same.
Took to the dealer and thankfully there was a smooth section of pavement on the road there where i demonstrated the noise.
They correctly diagnosed and replaced the bearing.
 
#42 ·
@Davy12 Yeah I had a similar experience with mine although I took it to my local Subaru Tuner shop. They said it was a good thing I didn't try to take them off myself because they were rusted and pretty seized up on there. Took their strongest impact gun or something to get them off. Seems to me that the OEM bearings have or had a design flaw. Hopefully the newer models have improved bearings.
 
#43 ·
I think my dad had about 340,000 miles on his '05 Tacoma before he sold it... three out of four wheels still had the original bearings. What the heck is Subaru using for their bearings? Plastic? :crazy:
 
#44 ·
ryan_calif said:
I think my dad had about 340,000 miles on his '05 Tacoma before he sold it... three out of four wheels still had the original bearings. What the heck is Subaru using for their bearings? Plastic? :crazy:
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At what mileage did your dad get the new frame for his truck? The dealer probably replaced the wheel bearings, brake lines, fuel lines, etc at that time.

My friend's '05 Taco received a new frame (and extras) around 130k miles.
 
#45 ·
Welp, my LR bearing is singing at 130k. Did the right rear at 112k last year.

Bad design and seemingly typical Subaru with no root cause fix. Wonder how long till the fronts go?

Oh, and the Tacoma frame service does not include wheel bearing replacements. They do frame, rear springs, one set of control arms as well as fuel lines, parking brake system (a nemesis of rusty Toyotas) and a whole lot of fasteners, etc. At least they did on mine. They did try and up-sell me on a few items like rusty bumpers. I said no except to a rusty oil pan of which I paid for replacement of, as well as a few other minor items and a tie rod end that went due to a snow plowing slide on ice at church. AND with a 13 year old truck they still gave me a Camry SE loaner of which I put almost 20k highway miles on (vaca season!) and it didn't use one drop of 0w-20 oil.

https://autoweek.com/article/recalls/toyota-frame-settlement-could-cost-company-34-billion
 
#47 ·
SPT714 said:
Probably not long since i had all 4 of mine replaced before i hit 90k
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Drivers front wheel now has a high pitched brake squeal when making right and left turns. Guess I should have ordered two fronts also. Can't wait to see the joy of trying to get the hub off of the front spindle. I envision the same nightmares as the left rear >:)

Does Subaru ever do root cause fixes?
 
#48 ·
Does Subaru ever do root cause fixes?[/QUOTE]

No idea i just think they use **** quality bearings lol luckily all of mine were covered under my 7yr 100k powertrain warranty...hopefully i don't have to replace anymore
 
#50 ·
dawgMobile said:
90k; doing my rear two tomorrow (2.5i; '14)
Click to expand...
Any tales from the crypt? :grin2: If you haven't yet done them I'd do a light coating of grease or anti seize on the bearing race in the spindle as well as the bearing outer surface. It might make the job a happy one if you need to do it again.

My right rear arrived during the rainy season, time to rip into it. Have to look at the nightmare that will be the LF replacement next.
 
#51 ·
Where are you all getting front and rear wheel bearings?

I'm not finding anything on rockauto that seems to be compatible with a '18.

Hopefully I'm still a few years off on wheel bearings ...
 
#53 ·
Just turned 68,000 miles on my 14.
Replaced the passenger side rear last week and going to replace the drivers side rear this weekend.

Very disappointing with obvious issues. Its totally unacceptable for these hub bearings to fail so early in their service life. Second is the lack of any anti-sieze compound used during factory installation or plating (cadmium) to prevent the rust mating of the bearing hub and the arm. The build up of rust in this area is problematic even if you don't need to pull the hub.

Lastly, this would have been a $1000+ service at the stealership if I wasn't able to do it myself.
 
#54 ·
Warren S said:
Just turned 68,000 miles on my 14.
Replaced the passenger side rear last week and going to replace the drivers side rear this weekend.

Very disappointing with obvious issues. Its totally unacceptable for these hub bearings to fail so early in their service life. Second is the lack of any anti-sieze compound used during factory installation or plating (cadmium) to prevent the rust mating of the bearing hub and the arm. The build up of rust in this area is problematic even if you don't need to pull the hub.

Lastly, this would have been a $1000+ service at the stealership if I wasn't able to do it myself.
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There's definitely a trend going on here.... like a ticking time bomb. My story is very similar -- Took a long road trip around 67,000 miles in my '14 Forester Touring and after that trip, I started to hear a whirring sound coming from the back of the car, like a distant prop airplane or driving on a milled highway but more muffled. Not very loud, but loud enough that my wife noticed it even with the radio on.

I couldn't isolate which side of the car it was coming from, but later came to find from my dealer that BOTH sides of the REAR bearings are going bad. Service department quoted about $480 to replace EACH side.

But all of this happened as I was preparing to trade in my '14 for a '19 Forester. The sales manager heard the bearing noise when they appraised my trade and told me very matter-of-factly that it was in excellent condition although they would need to repair the bearings. He said it in passing, as if it wasn't even a big deal. I told him that I could fix the bearings myself and asked how much more trade-in value I would get after the repair, he told me that it won't really affect the resale value enough to cover my costs and that I should just trade it in with the bad bearing and they would refurbish it. So either their internal costs to repair are extremely low or there's a secret extended warranty that they're not telling me about that they will take advantage of.

So I am seriously considering buying the Subaru Gold Plus extended warranty for my new '19. At the discount prices one can buy this from Internet dealers (E.G., $995 for 8 year/80k with $0 ded), it would more than pay for one set of bad bearings, or the cracked front control arm bushings I paid $1200 to replace.

Anyway, the story gets better -- I told my neighbor this story, who also has a '14 Forester. He told me that his dealership informed him his bearings were going bad at 59,000 miles when he was getting his state inspection performed, and they were able to replace them under the powertrain warranty. When he told his coworker his story, the coworker said his '14 Forester had bad bearings at 63,000 miles and he had to pay to have them replaced.

So for pretty much everyone I know that has a '14 Forester, they are all having failed rear bearings between 55,000 - 70,000 miles. This high failure rate is very un-Subaru-like. Very disappointing.
 
#55 ·
They tried to sell me an extended warranty on my 14, but it overlapped the manufacturers warranty for the first 3 years and 36k miles. I said I want the extended to kick in after my manufactures warranty expired, and for that matter, why should I buy it now when the car is new?

Anyway - the bearing issue isn't the only other thing i am not happy about with my 14, looks like another brand for my next CUV.
 
#56 ·
At least they are unit bearing and not asinine press-in wheel bearings. Those are the worst, especially here in the rust belt
 
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#58 · (Edited)
Scooby24 said:
Looks very easy compared to some press in ones I've done on a BMW. That sucked.

2014 SUBARU FORESTER REAR WHEEL BEARING HUB REPLACEMENT - YouTube
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That video is joke. "Tap tap tap" my ***! I don't think it would even be that easy to change the hubbearing on a Forester that just rolled off the lot.

I had a 5 pound hammer and an iron bar, placed against the bolts from behind that were partially un-threaded. I had to walk it out fractions of an inch at a time.... Maybe i should have went the hundred bucks for the hub-buster tool...

The majority of the look like this:
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#59 ·
My friend is a mechanic, Subaru guy and he does front and rear Forester wheel bearings all the time....doesn't matter what year. One thing he's noticed is that they don't have enough grease in them. You'd think Subaru would fix the bearing issues.
 
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Bez
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