Rear end noise- fixed

[Jay]

I worked on my buddy's 98 Tourer friday.  Currently has 83,000 miles. Had a clunking noise in the rear.  The way he described the noise it sounded like a u-joint.  I ordered one from HDL and had it within a week.  Turned out to be the left rear wheel bearing...again.  He had the dealer replace it around three years ago.  It looks as though the seal wore so that there is space between the spacer and the seal that probably allowed grit to enter and destroy the bearing. 

Replaced the u joint anyway as long as we had it apart, and installed new rear brake pads.

[Patrick]

I'm glad you let us know what the problem was, many leave us wondering..

[F6Dave]

I know of two cases where a dealer installed a replacement rear bearing with only one side sealed, and another where they tried to sell one but the owner (me) protested.  Is it possible that the one seal didn't wear, but wasn't there to begin with?

I've heard this stuff often enough that I think Honda had a problem with their bearing supplier.  Could some of the replacement bearings have been mis-labeled?  And, could some of the OEM bearings have been defective?  There were far too many low mileage failures of this one bearing.  Bearing load calculations aren't very difficult, and Honda engineers are too smart to spec one so small that so many would fail so early.  Here's some more evidence:  my OEM bearing failed at 50K, but the NAPA replacement is still fine 100K miles later.