I am going to change my two front hubs, but had an idea I might do. Let me know if it's a good or bad idea.

Since HHR's seem to have a problem with hub failures, I was wondering if it could be that they do not have cotter pins on the axle causing them to not be as secure as other cars that do have that pin.

So my idea is to put the nut on and torque it to the proper 155 lbs of torque and then put a castle nut after and drill the axle for a cotter pin.

What do you guys think, it seems vehicles with cotter pins do not have this problem?

 

The axle nut on the hhr is a locking nut. Per the service manual the nut should be replaced with a new one when removed.

Adding a cotter pin should not change any thing as far as bearing life.

There are different qualities of bearings out there. Sometimes you get what you pay for. Cheap prices sometimes means cheap bearings.

 

It's kind of a coincidence. Cotter pins are seen more on older cars, and so are tapered roller bearings.
Nothing wrong with the hub nut on hhrs, it's that they use ball bearings, which have less friction but are also less durable.

 

Auto parts stores have an entire section of shelves devoted to hubs. They usually stock 2 HHR/Cobalt/G5/Ion/Saab hubs in one line (2 units in the store). Many others are stocked much deeper, like 4 each in 3 lines (12 units in the store).

I am saying HHRs do not have a particular problem with hubs or the geniuses that stock stores would stock more.