Ford has a recall on the bearing axle assembly due to premature failure for the 2003 Lincoln Town car but my vin# was not included in the recall I was told. I told Ford that they needed to include it because I was having the problem described in the recall. Ford got away with murder on this one because this has happened on a lot more vehicles than they included in the recall. If you had this problem and took it to Ford or an Independent shop your buying 2 new axles.The failure starts as an awful noise that comes from the bearing in the vehicle rear that sounds urgent.My repair procedure was you have to remove the differential cover drain the oil unbolt the axle from the gear assembly, I had to rent a puller to get axle & bearing out The old bearing had lost several ball bearings had they all fell out the axle would have destroyed itself Boom $900.00 Plu . I Put a new oem bearing & seal and I was done right,Wrong. the bearing failed again 3 months later I did a little more research and discovered that due to the material used in the axle housing being a soft metal the the original oem bearing cuts an indentation into the metal causing it to become larger than it was originally therefore replacing it with an oem bearing will cause it to have to much play in the axle housing causing rapid failure.Remedy use a repair bearing it has a longer race which creates a new seating inside the housing. Solved my problem since 2008 FYI this was on the left rear never had a problem on the right side. I spent less than fifty bucks on both replacements Don't fall for the Oakey Doke.