I recently purchased my first Subaru, a 2011 Outback 3.6R with ~90K miles. Everything looked good upon inspection by a mechanic (new shop I've never used before), but they replaced the left passenger wheel bearing that was making some noise. All the other wheel bearings looked good, they said. The following week after putting ~500 miles on the new wheel bearing I went on a roadtrip and put about 4K miles on in a week and a half. Well, at about 2.5K miles, I start to hear a whirring sound that sounds like a wheel bearing is bad again. I think, great, it's probably a different one, but hope for the best. Fast forward to this week and I took the car to a dealership to get a new opinion, and they told me both rear wheel bearings are going bad, which would include the one that was just replaced a couple weeks ago. My question is, did I just buy an Outback that is for some reason going through new wheel bearings really fast for some as-of-yet unknown reason, or did the first shop possibly do something wrong in their installation (seems like a pretty routine fix, but you never know)? I just think it's really weird that the new one wore out so fast it's making noise again, AND that the drivers side rear wheel bearing is now also bad. Aside from putting so many miles on the car right away, I've been treating it with kid gloves, driving super carefully, etc. Any help or insight is appreciated!
I had to do one wheel bearing twice on my 05 outback sport due to installation error on my part. To a lesser degree make sure the car is aligned and wheels balanced after replacing the wheel bearing again It could be argued the shop should warranty that
The wheel bearings on newer cars definitely do not last as long. I suspect in an effort to reduce rolling resistance, they're using thinner grease, and/or smaller roller contact area, leading to premature (by my standards...I'm looking at bearing replacement in our 2004 with 235k on it) wear. Bearings can absolutely be damaged when installed. And cheap bearings aren't worth the time to install them. I would definitely be in touch with the shop that did the one, assuming they bought from a local parts store, it likely has at least a 90 day warranty (and depending on the relationship between the shop and store, could probably just pay the difference to upgrade to a better bearing).
Oem subaru wheel bearing can also be had cheap on ebay if the shop is willing to refund for the defective one (i dont use shops so idk how that all works) Hell the bolt on oem bearing and hub isn't even that bad (https://www.amazon.com/2010-2014-Outback-Bearing-Genuine-28473AJ00A/dp/B07S31WZYG)
