Rear axle nut was loose - is my rear bearing thrashed?

[black_box]

So I went to do a rear wheel bearing R&R due to looseness in the wheel and intermittent noise under load. When I put the breaker on the axle nut, the thing just turned! It's supposed to be torqued to 340 ft-lbs!

I tightened it to spec and the looseness has disappeared, and I haven't been able to replicate the noise (it occurred mostly under engine braking).

Question is this: after a couple thousand miles of driving w/ intermittent mystery noise that looks to have been due to loose axle nut, is it likely that the bearing was damaged and that I ought to do the replacement anyway? I rented a tool to do it and would hate to have to jump through that hoop again, but the procedure does not look like much fun either.

[JFP in PA]

Not necessarily, but I would still keep an eye on it as the loose nut did not do it any favors………

[wvicary]

If anything the service life of the brng has been shortened. I would still plan for replacement including the retaining nut. Did you check the torque value of the other wheel brng nut?

[black_box]

I didn't have a torque wrench that goes to 340 ft-lbs, so I had to do the "step on extension 2 ft away from pivot with my 165 lbs" method of torque. We couldn't break the other side loose even by stepping on the breaker, so assumed it was torqued properly.

I bought the car from a non-porsche dealer (got a great deal) that had replaced one wheel bearing after taking it in as a trade. I had someone else pick it up while I was out of town and he did not note which side had been done. My theory is that the loose nut was do to improper torquing after the previous R&R service - they probably just tightened it the same way you'd do on a normal car, which would be typically be less than 150 ft-lbs.