Croma/Thema/164 front wheel bearings/hubs

["Mark Battley" <m.battley@domain.elided>]

I've just had to replace a front wheel bearing on my wife's 1989 Fiat Croma.
No big deal, except that one of the inner races had been spinning on the
driveflange/hub, which meant that I had to replace it too, adding
significantly to the cost... at least my neighbour works for SKF which made
the bearing cheap. And we have a press at work which makes the job much
easier.

The local Fiat/Lancia/Alfa parts and service place tell me that this is very
common on the Croma and Thema, and sometimes happens on the 164 as well. Has
anybody else had experience of this? How common is it? The advantage of the
Fiat is that the part was $NZ150, rather than supposedly $NZ600 for the
equivalent Alfa part.. which has 5 bolt holes rather than 4, but is
otherwise basically the same! Also, what is a typical life of front bearings
in these cars: ours had only done 100 000km, which seems relatively low.

Mark Battley
Auckland, New Zealand.

1973 Alfa Romeo 2000 GT Veloce
1989 Fiat Croma

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