Automotive → follow up on wifes accident

So any way wife got hit by underinsured motorist. »wife in accident

Car was fixed and everything good until it was time for inspection. Failed inspection for the L front hub bearing. The only dam part the shop used that wasnt OEM. The inspection mechanic stated the car wasnt even safe for the road. The car is back at the shop which is now like 6 months later hopefully getting fixed. Guess i just needed someone to rant to and picked you guys. I already told the guys you get one chance to fix this. From here i take the dam car to the dealer and have OEM parts installed and give you four weeks to pay or i just take it to small claims court and get my money back.

Not sure how its going to go as i insisted on them paying for the rental car and they insisted they dont have to. But when we picked the rental up the rental lady said it isnt costing us a dime. Dropped it off last night and we shall see how it goes. Wish me luck guys.

That is why I will fight until the end for OEM parts. Had the insurance company and/or the Body Shop paid the extra $50 or so dollars for the OEM part, they would of avoided this whole dilemma and extra cost

Well its been there for a day. Thats not a good sign. The problem is the hub has no play in the bearing. It just makes a very bad whining noise when its going down the road. The body shop wants NAPA to pick up the cost of the repair now since thats where the bearing came from. Im sure they will have lots of luck with that. In any case i dont see this ending well. But the mechanic that diagnosed it as bad said any competent mechanic will see its bad. Personally i think they just screwed it up putting it in some way as i would have trusted a bearing from NAPA to be ok. But its made the noise since we got it back and just gets worse every day since.

NAPA will not pick up the cost of labor/installation, and it's in their warranty. Have you taken it to Toyota to see what they would want to do?

Are you sure it was the part that was faulty and not the roads that tore your wife's car apart? If the roads there are in bad shape, then the shop or the part may not be the problem.

The roads are in really bad shape around here. I just had my car aligned in May and I think I'm staring down the barrel at getting another alignment as the car handles really poorly. The roads here are really tearing my car apart. I have a hard enough time pulling into a parking space because of the poor handing.

I fix the car with aftermarket parts all the time, I'm too cheap to use OEM parts. It's like buying generic drugs at the pharmacy.

Check with your insurance company... my daughter wrecked my car a few years ago (slid off road on ice, sideways into an embankment). About two months after the repairs were made, the one of the front wheel bearings started making a noise; the shop concurred that it could have been due to the accident, and contacted insurance; insurance authorized the repair, no additional cost to me.

Also, many "inusrance approved" shops provide life-time warranty on the repairs that they perform - check with the shop.

I live in a high traffic state that is notorious for heave/thaw and bad roads. I gave up, bought a truck and never looked back. The toughest truck I ever owned was an F150. I had it for 7 years and never aligned the front end.

It was making the noise from the time it left the shop but even if it was the road that also doesnt matter. Once its repaired on the insurance companies dime you get a life time warranty as long as you use there approved repair shop which i did.

The insurance company replaced it as a result of the accident. The problem is the one they put on went bad.

So anyway we got the car back today and they replaced the Lf bearings again. The only thing im not sure about is they said it didnt need the front end alignment redone. But the mechanic that flunked it for inspection said it would need a alignment done after being replaced. so my question is what do you guys think. Should have it been done or not?

Im a little concerned on not having it done as i know the old thread is long but the car took 4 shots at the alignment rack before they could get it to pass after straightening the unibody. I took it to my mechanic when i got it back the first time and he said the alignment was spot on. But that was with a bad bearing and i really dont know whats involved in straightening the unibody.

Tires still had 6 32nds on them but i went ahead and had all 4 replaced so i can see how they wear. Seems to me to have a little ripple in the lf one but not realy sure as they only have 200 miles on them.

It will need an alignment after a front wheel bearing replacement.

Curious about that. Why would it need an alignment after a bearing replacement? Most wheel bearings nowadays involve replacing a hub that is held on by maybe three bolts and the spindle nut. You're mating a flat surface to a flat surface.

I've never had alignment issues after changing wheel hubs on my last two cars.

The bearing on his Corolla installs into the knuckle using a press-fit.

The knuckle must be removed from the vehicle to do this.

When the knuckle is removed, the camber (and thus toe) changes due to the slack in the connection of the knuckle to the strut.


example (not a Corolla)

Hmmm, as much as I hate non-servicable parts on cars, I guess I should appreciate the requirement to change the hub whenever I do front bearings on my cars. No need to go into that. Three bolts on the hub, the spindle nut and the ABS sensor wire is all that's needed.

i agree, last year doing the back brakes on my cousins 01 kia rio i was floored that i had to re pack the brearing after doing BRAKES