I had just stopped at a red light and my steering was acting funny - sort of jerking to the left slightly. As I left the intersection and got up to about 20-25 mph, the truck suddenly jerked hard to the left and I could not recover control. I crossed two lanes of oncoming traffic and fortunately did not hit anyone - I ended up in a snow berm across the street. I had thought it might be my brakes sticking because of the cold weather in Alaska. It turns out it was a failure of the wheel bearings. According to the mechanic, this is a common problem with sealed wheel bearings - the seal goes bad, the bearings dry out, then they lock up. It typically results in a tire falling off and an ensuing accident - often fatal. My 5 year old son was with me and I was fortunate not to have taken the highway where I would have been traveling at 65 mph. I'm quite certain I would have killed someone if not my son and myself. I have a 1998 Dodge 2500 with the cummins diesel and it has 99985 miles on it - the diesel engine exacerbates this problem due to the noise level - I may have been able to hear these bearings going out sooner. I had to replace the wheel bearings and other misc parts that were torn apart - either when the bearings went out or I hit the snow berm.

- Anchorage, AK, USA

Defective wheel bearings

- Lawrenceville, NJ, USA

Defective wheel bearings

- Lawrenceville, NJ, USA