I have a whirring noise coming from my driver's side front. It's fairly noisy no matter what the speed.

I have a 2001 Sebring LXI Coupe with about 69,000 miles on it. Is that about the shelf life for a bearing?

Thanks!

 

If you have a pair of good jackstands, jack up the front end and place the car securely on the stands. Then fire it up and put it in gear. You ought to be able to tell where the noise is coming from. If it's coming from the wheel area, then it's probably the wheel bearing. I've got over 100,000 on three cars without a wheel bearing problem, but yours could have gotten water or dirt in there somehow, so anything's possible.
Replacement involves separating some ball joints to pull the hub off over the drive axle.

 

A wheel bearing can go for anywhere from 60 k to 120k. A whirring sound no matter the speed is the largest indicator of a bad wheel bearing. There is very little chance of it being anything else. One tip of advice, when seperating the ball joints you a seperator tool. If you try to just hit it, chances are you will mushroom the ball joint stud.

 

What is the cost of a wheel bearing job? local guy says $310 for a LXI 02 sedan.

 

Thats pretty steep, but might be avarage for a shop. The Hub can be purchased for about $50 each. If you have the tools each side could easily be done 30-45 minutes. Just be prepared with some WD40 and have some patience to allow it some time to work. You will most likely need it to get the axel splines free and to seperate the Hub from the knuckle.