In reply to clownkiller :
Oooof.
In reply to clownkiller :
Oooof.
In reply to clownkiller :
It actually went to GRM member TastyGuac for $1300, which is a bit less than I probably had into it including my U-Haul rental to get it home. Sorry I didn't post more details who bought it earlier, I just posted quick.
I put it on Craigslist and CarGurus just in case nobody from GRM claimed it. I've been around this website far too long to do that to a GRMer. I would never sell it like that to a fellow member for a profit, that would be total d-bag. I've bought many cars from here. Hell, bought a 94 Mustang GT from AnthonyGS a few years back, and that car is now with my son getting "built". But sure, if nobody here wanted it and I sold to the general public I was going to advertise high and negotiate down. Even at the CL price, I had several people interested. Just glad it stayed in the GRM family. Sorry you didn't get to it first. I promise you, not a single dime of profit made. In fact I took a small loss, along with the long drive time. On the bright side, I met a super friendly bunch of shop owners and U-Haul dealers in southern VA. They went out of their way to help me. It made my adventure home easy and rather pleasant.
I started working on it last night. I believe the rear brakes were fine at one point, I don't think that is where the problem started. When I jacked it up, the passenger rear wheel has inches of play in every direction. The wheel bearing is completely worn away and the hub nut is welded to the axle. Broke a 1/2 breaker bar trying to remove it. The whole hub assembly has worn a gigantic hole in the trailing arm and anything not metal in that area is completely melted away. If it wasn't for the axle and disc, the hub would fall off. By far the worst wheel bearing failure I've seen! My guess is the bearing was already toast and the interstate speeds caused a catastrophic failure.
I'm just going to assume everything in that corner is trash and replace it all. Should make a cool car, wife wanted another turbo Subaru after we sold her WRX a few years back.
Ugh...is there something I should have or could have noticed as I was driving? Like I said, I did hear a whine from the rear of the car a few times, but otherwise the only thing I noticed was gas mileage that really seemed to suck. Then I got the Error SS warning on the dash and smelled smoke.
It might have shown up as the one wheel being hotter than the rest, which is something to check when driving a new-to-you car, especially if MPG seems bad. In particular brake caliper slides on northeast cars get sticky and you won't notice a lightly dragging brake on a quick trip around the block but it will build heat on a long haul. Also rubber brake hoses on old cars also can turn into one-way valves as they break down internally. I know in this case the wheel bearing took a huge dump, I am just saying that checking wheel/rotor temp on a long trip with a strange car is a good idea.
There were some big chunks of metal caught behind the rotor so my guess is the major bearing failure happened all at once. I would say by the time a bearing starts making noise, it's time to park it. Noisy bearings make a lot of heat. My guess is the AWD helped mask a pull to the right so really the noise and poor mileage would be the only outward signs.
You'll need to log in to post.
