My 2016 Mazda 3 sedan suffered premature front wheel bearing failure. It started making noise at two years and I replaced them at 120,000 km when the vibration became worrisome. What life are others getting from these front wheel bearings. Should I expect to replace them in another two years. $1000 every two years for front bearings seems like bad design passed on as expensive maintenance to the customer.

 

Aside from the interesting information that you drove for the length of time with a known possible problem, there is no report premature Front bearing in your MAZDA.
Given as as read what you said you got a pretty good life from them considering my starting comment? Also had you replaced them, at the first sign of trouble the shop may have been able to tell you what cause them to need servicing? There are so many factors that lead to some suspension wear that some may judge to be premature part wear the list could be endless. My suggestion is find a shop that specializing in front end alignment and brakes and suspension have a good inspection done. My guess is the factors will be more road condition contributing to your problem? But that is only a total guess on my parts serving many MAZDA's and owning a newer MAZDA 3 with the same front end and parts as yours. I am close to 25k miles and there is not any indication of even a beginning of wear on my front hub bearing and I drive my Mazda spiritedly in the mountains often. Before I purchased my MAZDA I also did an extensive and comprehensive research on TSB and other technical information accessible to me through the shop concerning wear and parts reported routinely being replaced. LOL

I would get grey hair thinking you are going to need to spend a grand every 2 years.... but I would check into what I suggested!

 

Thank you for your intelligent reasoned and insightful reply. I considered what you said about road condition; I had been commuting over several miles of roadway reconstruction which had numerous 1 inch thick steel plates on it and poor ashphalt transitions prior to the onset of the bearing noise. I switched to a longer smoother route to work. The bearing noise was bothersome to me. Three mechanics said "you can`t expect an old car to be quiet like new" After two years of annoyance, The bearings started making a lot more noise and I found a mechanic who took it seriously. It is quiet like new again.