Beware of cheap wheel bearings

[Welly]

Our C4's original front bearings crapped out at 8 years/60K miles (great service eh?) and the noise was unbelievable (all happened over about 2 weeks)....

That was precisely 2 years/15K miles ago.....and guess what? yep they've gone again

I remember the mechanic asking which bearings I wanted from a list of 'High to Low' pricing and because I thought they'd outlast the car I went for the cheap ones, not 'the cheapest' but the lower end of the scale thinking that would get me a decent length of service from them.

At the moment they've entered the 'woo woo woo' noise stage so be interesting* to see where this takes us.

So beware, as with sussy parts, cheapest might bring trouble sooner than you imagine.

[steve_earwig]

Sometimes you get what you pay for. Most of the time you just get ripped off

Any idea of the make?

[Doggy]

They generally last and last, unless you disturb them by removing a hub for example. I ran an old Montego years ago to 12 years/215k miles and had cause to swap a few bearings in that time.
The thing that really surprised me was that even a horrendously noisy bearing exhibited almost no play or roughness once you got the sodding thing off. They were definitely knackered as the noise completely disappeared after the swap, but I believe you can soldier on with a noisy one until convenient so long as there's no detectable play at the wheel rim.