211 Wheel bearing failure

[GordonTarling]

On Monday, the left front wheel bearing failed on my S211 at a most inconvenient time. Fortunately, the car was only going slowly and I managed to get it into a pub car park. Had ABS, ESP and service brake warnings as well! Called out the AA, but the man missed that the wheel bearing had failed and towed me (slowly) about 5 miles to the nearest MB dealer. To fix all that they wanted to fix at the front was estimated at £2200 and then they wanted to change rear shocks, drivers door mirror, rear brake pads and the wiper blades! Thought about recovering the car to Olly at PCS, but his recovery man can't enter the London low emissions zone and anyone else wanted £200 or more to take it 60 miles to Horndean. (sorry Olly!)

I called Wayne Gates in Harrow and he put me on to his recovery man, who quoted £60 - much better! The car got to Harrow this morning and when I called WG at about 12.30, the car had already been stripped and parts ordered. Total will be approx £1300, but not including the rear shocks and wiper blades. A much more palatable price! Also was told that the car will be ready tomorrow, which is a bonus for me!

Has anyone else experienced a front wheel bearing failure on a 211? My car has done 148k miles, so not one of the highest mileage cars out there.

 

[kth286]

any warning noises/vibrations previous day ?

Had car been in for work of any kind ?

Did you hit any potholes recently ?

what alerted you to the failure please.

seems unusual as bearings usually whine beforehand.

 

[GordonTarling]

Had been to Grantham and back (250 miles) the previous day and didn't notice anything unusual. Nothing done to the car since its service last year and that was only oil and filter change. The whole road network around Hillingdon is riddled with potholes, but I do try to miss most of them. First sign was a slight 'grinding' noise that appeared to come from under the car toward the rear - very intermittent at first. Eventually, all the dashboard warnings told me something was amiss, but it looked like it was an SBC/ABS fault rather than a wheel bearing. I've had front wheel bearings fail before and you're right, you can usually hear them when they're starting to go.