02 GT: Front wheel bearings at 30,000 miles?

[trinity_gt]

My 02 GT has been out of winter storage now for a month or so and has developed a noise I'm told is a front wheel bearing. It has all the hallmarks of it, especially the increased intensity when cornering (worst on right turns in my case...)

Thing is, the car is stored all winter, rarely driven in the rain and has only 30,000 miles or so on it. This can't be normal, can it? The shop said they took the cap off and found water in there. I can't think of where this came from..unless maybe the undercar wash at the local touch-free place somehow jets water past the seals...

30K miles seems awfully low for a bearing replacement, even on a car like this with a hulking fat iron V8 under the hood. Thoughts?

 

[hognutz]

30k is way to low. something went wrong. is there any play in them? did you inspect them. It is so easy to just pull the hub off and look at them I would just take it apart and see if they are bad.

If you clean them up you should see signs of wear or damage if that is the case.

 

[Kilgore Trout]

I just changed one of my own it was easy I changed it at 67k. The cap was missing over the bearings and that is what caused the failure. I made a great thread, with pics on fixing this

http://forums.stangnet.com/showthread.php?t=616312

 

[bdcardinal]

not common, however its been known to happen.

 

[Mike97gt]

some parts might last 150k on one car and 5k on another.

I put a engine in a explorer with 72 miles ( not 72k miles I mean 72 as in under 100 miles, still had the window sticker on it) that is abnormal but it happens.

it's not just fords, I put a trans in a rav4 back in the short time I worked on toyotas with 1k miles on it.