Looking at my maintenance booklet, I see no entry for inspecting the front wheel bearings (or the rear ones).

I was running at highway speeds when one of my left front wheel bearings failed, and the reason I noticed it was that it was making expensive-sounding noises. Stopping off to inspect the wheel, I jacked up the car, and found that the wheel seemed to have no play when the top or bottom was pulled laterally, but it indeed had that grumbling bearing failure noise when rotated.

Turns out, the inner bearing failed, and all hell broke loose there, with the bearing material eating into the spindle and hub, both of which were expensive, with the spindle quite difficult to source as well. Considering that the spindle and hub do not normally fail, these were write-offs for me.

Looking back, it never occurred to me to regularly check my front wheel bearings for play or noises, and I surely will be doing this regularly, at least when I change my tires for the seasons, or when I rotate them.

I normally drive on the left lane of the highway, which slopes slightly downwards on the left for drainage pruposes, and this imposes more load on the inner front bearing, which has probably caused its premature wear.