I was investigating an intermittent VSA light and doing some post track day maintenance and noticed that there was some grease build up/wetness on the inside of both of my front wheel bearings. I noticed some larger gunk build up near the front left wheel speed sensor (along with a tiny sliver of metal).

I'm guessing I overheated my front bearings and they started pushing grease out. Is this is a common issue on stock S2000s? Does this mean I'll need new bearing imminently?

I'll check on the VSA 83-1 code again once I'm done with the fluid changes etc. I cleaned up some of the grease on the tone ring area and I hope that was the source of the code.

Car is a 2006 with 52k miles. Carbotech XP8 brake pads

Pics below for reference.

 

Do you have a leaky brake fitting, or did you spill fluid?

 

Prolly not much grease left in the bearing,replacement may be best option

 

The darker part could be brake fluid from my bleed before the track. I only see it on the insides of both front uprights. My bleed yesterday didn't have any bubble so I don't think it was an active leak while driving. I'm not sure it would explain the grease/gunk build up on the inside of the tone ring area.

 

Kind of either has to be brake fluid or bearing grease being right there. Odd for that much grease to escape the bearing though and end up back there. Hydraulic fluid has a markedly different feeling on your fingers than grease does though and once you know the way it feels it is hard to mistake it. Rubbing it between your fingers tends to make it easy to tell.

I would clean it up really well and try to monitor to see where it is coming from first. You could have a caliper leaking slowly and not notice air getting in right away. If it is for sure bearing grease then yes, you need new bearing now. As to if this happens commonly I would say no. People do go through bearings more on track than on the street but I have been running mine pretty hard at the track for years and have never had it dump the bearing grease like that.

 

I agree. It looks like brake fluid.