Stupid Wheel Bearing

Less than 2 years after replacing both front wheel bearing hub assemblies in my Grand Prix, one of them is toast. Well, at least it has a significant amount of play. Of course, this all comes pleasantly after the one year warranty expired. The wheel bearing is about $130 up from just over $100 two years ago. On recommendation from people in the Grand Prix Club, I dropped the cash on a National Bearing from O'Reilly. I walked out the door and glared at the "Made in Korea" sticker. "Hmmm....," I thought.

The next day after a few caffeine beverages I finally mustered up the motivation to throw a jack under the car. I've done a bunch of these (3 on this car alone) but if you're looking to do this yourself, I found a good guide here. I used air tools so I had the old wheel bearing out in about 18 minutes. I grabbed the new one out of the box and noticed they had similar markings. "Wait!," I thought, "this broken one is a National Bearing." Crap. I put it carefully back in the box and headed to Autozone where I picked up a Timken. I slipped the new one in, hooked up the wires, did a little torquing of the retaining nut, and reversed the install process complete with threadlocker and loads of fun. It probably took 1.75 hours with the trip to the store but I feel better with the non-suspect hardware installed. Unfortunately, my ABS light keeps coming on at random. I was hoping it was related to the failing hub but I guess it's back to the drawing board for that one. It's just good, solid GM electronics.

Fun disassembly. I even used a jack stand because I was 62% safe that day.

Removed National Bearing and it's bearing play shenanigans
Timken Piezas Para Servicio por los Borrachadores