NC Front Wheel Bearings - Is This Normal?

[mitchman]

While my car was up on a lift yesterday, the mechanics pointed out that both my front wheels didn't spin very well. You could barely get them to spin more than one revolution. They didn't think it was the brake pads dragging as you couldn't hear them touching the rotor. The driveshaft was disconnected while they were working on it, and they pointed out the the rear wheels (thru the differential) spun even better than the front wheels!

Turns out that my left front hub assembly had been replaced by the previous owner and had only 1000 miles on it. (you can't replace just the bearings, you have to replace the entire assembly – $191 from Mazda) But yet, both front wheels spun with the same amount of drag!

The mechanics just figured that the MX5 front wheel bearings just don't spin as freely as other cars.

Anyone ever notice this? I'm going to check out a friend of mine's MX5 and see if his front wheels spin better than mine.

I've toyed with the idea of swapping to RX8 front hubs, but I wanna make sure everything will fit back in place. Bolt pattern, hub diameter, abs sensor and mount....stuff like that.

[Brian]

Yes, common issue if you hard drive it....which is why we always run our race cars on the RX8 hubs.

[mitchman]

Thanks. I'm interested Brian. But what about compatibility issues?

I assume the bolt pattern is the same. What about hub diameter? Same? Do they come with a proper abs sensor (gear)?

I just want to make sure that everything bolts up correct and there are no surprises. (I've had too many surprises lately)

[Brian]

Mazda has more than one version for RX8..but the unit we provide is the later version which is simple bolt on plug and play on the MX5....just a more heavy duty version of the MX5 part.

[mitchman]

Thanks Brian.