Sensation

Bearings like any metals expand and contract with heat. That being said itd havw to be upwards of 100 celcius to have any major expansion. Easiest way is using a stethescope on the back of the hub to listen for any noise. Keep in mind if its only just failling itll need load on it to hear the noise.

Thought i'd chip in my 2 cents worth. I work for a company called SAECOWilson, one of NZ's biggest bearing supplier and are sister company to a few big bearing companies across Australia also. Timken - One of the best in the world, they manufacture their own bearing steel and sell their steel to other bearing companies. They're built strong and no bearing leaves their factory without each going through an xray, crack tester, harmonic test etc. NTN - Manufactured in two plants, one in Japan and one in Taiwan. The Taiwanese bearings are still under the same build quality and control as the Japanese ones. NTN make alot of bearings for OEM, such as A/C pumps, Idlers and Tensioners and alot of wheel bearings. They also supply most of the CV joints and universal joints across the automotive world. KOYO - Another big OEM supplier out of Japan, Honda use Koyo as their supplier for all of their wheel bearings, i'm pretty sure Nissan and Mitsubishi follow suite. SKF - Another good quality player, they have slipped over the years but are still none the less a great bearing. They're made across a few different countries, USA, Romania, Germany and England. Nachi - Japanese made, great quality control and also an OEM supplier for A/C pumps, idlers etc. NSK - One of the bigger names in the industrial world, they supply a little of the OEM automotive world but mostly are known for their industrial units. Such as their spherical rollers, slewing rings and linear motion. I would use any of them in my cars, wether it's my daily or any race car i've built. One thing I would reccomend is asking your shop where they buy them from, explain it's not so you can go look for a cheaper price but so you can guarentee they're a genuine item. We have a big issue in NZ, where some competitors were selling a NSK wheel bearing kit for $20 when it would be 100% impossible, as even our price from NSK(we're the only NSK agent in NZ) is more than that, and it turned out they were just chinese bearings in an NSK box. Hope you found this helpful, i'm only a new member here but thought i'd do my bit to shed some light on what is general maintenance and could help keep disaster from happening.