Took my 02 F250 4x4 5.4 into a local shop for a set of tires and an alignment. Got the call that the right front bearing was bad (total Bulls#$t) and they couldn't align it without changing the bearing... I did the ball joints and front bearings less than 30K miles ago and had the truck up on jack stands last week when I changed out my exhaust manifolds on both sides so I did a thurough inspection and lube. Banged on all my rods, shook tires, changed rotors, calipers, pads etc.

I know the bearings are fine. My question is, would a bad front bearing even effect thier ability to do an alignment?

I remember when my first set went bad. I knew they were bad because of the resistance to turning and the noises/vibration I was getting when driving. There was also some heat discoloring of the Hub/bearing assembly. But with the way the hub/bearing assembly is constructed (I would assume with roller bearings and not ball) there was no axial or angular movement like you would expect. I'm thinking if one of these hubs got that bad we'd be talking a catastrphic failure and undrivable truck. I'm really just trying to decide if the shop I used is completely dishonest or just incompotent.... or maybe i just have a hair across my backside for auto mechanics. Everytime I visit one its like I'm being fed a line of BS to separate me from my greenbacks. Interesting to note... after I argued with them about the bearings they did the alignment but 'would not warranty it'. The warranty I missed out on is 1000miles or 30 days... joke!

 

I've seen bearings on these trucks wear out to the piont of being loose. But easily found during your frontend shake down. I procastinated doing them on my last truck until play developed-if they are loose to the point an alginment would be dubius that problem would be far overshadowed by the safety aspects. Sounds fishy to me-since you know your way around a truck but don't have an aligment rack in your garage I would make them show you. You can then have the pleasure of calling the b.s. to there faces

 

In my expeirence I would not trust them. My dad bought a set of tires at a local tire shop, they came back and said he needed over $1000 worth of front end work. So he took it to our regular mechanic, as suspected nothing needed fixed. Then a couple of years later which was a couple weeks ago he gets a nail in a tire. He takes it in, first they said they couldn't fix the tire, but he could still drive on it for awhile with the nail still in the tire. Then they come back and said he needed over $800 worth of front end work. They wanted $259+$51 installed for a trackbar, I can get the exact part locally for $102. Way over priced.

Needless to say he went to Ford and bought new tires, and had them check out the front end, and was told nothing else needed to be done.

 

On my 5.4, I replaced the pass side hub bearing last summer. THis summer I had to do it again. 12k miles. It wasnt loose but it sounded like it had gravel in it. I shouldn't have bought a $150 cheapo unit. Then I only would have had to do it once. What brand bearing did you buy when you replaced it?