05 Forester wheel bearing

[canoeist11]

My 05 XT Forester has 69K miles at present. Although I am not sure, the roar that has developed the last several days sounds like a wheel bearing. I have not had recent vehicles where this has been a problem at this mileage interval, so I have the following questions:

 

1. Is the mileage intereval reasonable for this vehicle?

2. If one rear bearing is bad, should I expect to replace both at the same time?

3. Is this a job that can be reasonably be accomplished by a good mechanic, or is it "dealer only" type job?

4. OEM bearing replacemnt suggested or aftermarket? I guess I am not overly impressed with the longevity of OEM for this component.

 

Thanks

[idosubaru]

no that's not normal. if it was you'd be able to search this forum and find all kinds of threads about it - but you won't.

 

rear bearings are annoying, i'd personally buy a hub from a yard and swap them. being that new it won't be hard to find one with low miles and new.

 

it is annoying and you're an unfortunate minority but it's still anecdotal. if ever type of car was pulled from the market because of one failure....there wouldn't be any to buy.

 

that being said......it does seem like EJ rear bearings (that's all legacy, impreza, SVX, from the 90's until now) are less reliable than subaru models from the 80's, just based on posts like this. still wouldn't call it "normal", just that older gen had a good thing going in the rear.

 

each model has it's quirks...there are things about the newer generation of stuff that are less reliable than older stuff....but that doesn't mean it's normal, expected, or junk.