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Joe:
It's not all that unusual for a rear wheel bearing to need replacement on a 124, this guy must be lucky or just not work on many.
I'm sorry I'm having a difficult time comprehending what you are describing and also totally lost on the series of events you are describing.
1. You wanted to see what the noise was.
2. The tech took apart the rear hub, the inner race of course stuck to the flange.
2a. Did the bearing get replaced, yes or no.
2b. If it did, was this the 5-6K miles ago you mentioned? yes or no
3. The area on the flange where the bearing (inner race) presses on has grooves. Is this normal you ask. Maybe. There may be some scoring depending on how the inner race was removed from the flange. I would expect them to be across the narrow end of this area, not scores "around" the area as though something were spinning on it. This is a tight fit. If the bearing locked up, and the flange were spinning on the inner race, i assume you sure as heck would KNOW something ain't right. Never seen/heard of this happening before.
4. Looks like the inner race rides on 1/16" area. No, the area is about the width of the one section of inner race that is left on the flange after removal, about 3/8" to 1/2" by my estimation. It's flat, no machined in groove or anything.
4a if the groove is as you described "across" the area of the flange that the bearing is pressed onto, the tech may have used the method of inner race removal that I mentioned where a slot is cut into the inner race section to loosen the races grip on the flange, then is quite easily pryed off. Some techs I've seen do this twice on opposite sides of the old race, then it just falls off. i don't like marking up the flange with the grinder, so i use the collet puller, but i don't think that the slot that usually is left on the flange really hurts anything, nothing that would make a noise.
IF I had to guess or present a possible scenario, taken from personal experience, here it is:
Bearing is reinstalled, tech forgets to install the big retaining clip for the bearing, only discovering it AFTER the flange is reinstalled.
Tech tries to remove the flange from the new bearing, oh crap, the inner race popped out, stuck to the flange. Tech Carefully removes the inner race, pounds inner race into new bearing, installs big circlip, reinstalls flange, etc. Been there, done that, except the bearing is now junk and has to be removed, sorry boss, we just bought a wheel bearing. I'm sure several techs reading this can relate.
Not saying that this is what actually happened, but it can happen. If you work at a dealership you tell the boss you're sorry and move on. If it's a smaller shop the tech and/or owner may have different ideas. MAY is the key word, I don't want to generalize, this could happen in a big shop too if the tech thinks he's been screwing up too much lately and is afraid of the consequences of "one more" screw-up.
Whew, I'm done
Gilly
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