2006 Ford Focus with an ongoing wheel bearing issue. Earlier this year I heard a repetitive whirring noise from the back right, figured it was a bearing, brought the car in for repair. The shop confirmed and replaced the bearing.
3 months later, I heard the same noise. I brought the car to a different shop (I had moved since) and they confirmed that it was the same wheel bearing that had just been replaced. They said it may have been faulty. They attempted to repair it, but the noise persisted. They actually ended up putting the new bearing on the driver’s side rear and swapping out the old bearing that was on the driver’s side with old one on the passenger’s, which is the only way they could get the noise to stop entirely. (This confused me)
Fast forward two months and the noise is back on the same side - passenger’s rear. The shop is telling me that it is unrelated since the new bearing was technically put on the other side, however, I am thinking that the same thing keeps happening whenever any bearing is put in the same spot (passenger rear). My question is as follows - what could be happening in the passenger rear that would cause bearings to continually fail?