Rear wheel bearings

Wow,, 59,000 miles and gone? No words of wisdom from me, not familiar with this at all, it would appear to me that they are pressed on and sealed. My reasoning for even posting this is to see if there is any ''preventive'' steps to avoid this situation...

 

Premature wheel bearing failures can usually be traced back to bumping or running over curbs.

 

I recently took off the rear rotors, so was basically looking at the hubs. On one side the rotor was loose, just pulled off, but on the other side it had rust-bonded, wouldn't budge.

For breaking loose stuck rotors, there's 2 threaded holes in the rotors, that accept M8x1.25 thread. You want to get a pair of those bolts, say at least an inch long.

For me, the threaded holes were somewhat corroded, to the point that I was sceptical that I had the compatible thread (even though I've used these bolts in past on a drum brake). I just persevered, cleaning out the threads with a blower, screwing the bolt in carefully, then out. Eventually got both bolts through, then start screwing them in, against the bearing assembly front face.

Did one bolt a half turn, then the other, back and forth, until eventually the rotor popped loose. It was quite noisy when it did.

 

I just did the right rear two days ago. I had the wha wha wha for a while and decided to just do it. It took about 3 hours total. I watched a youtube video which was OK but not very thorough. I had only one problem. It was very difficult to get the rotor off as it was rusted to the hub. I whacked it maybe 20 times and then got some wd 40 and let it penetrate and it came off soon after that with just a few whacks. The hub came off pretty quick, as I sprayed it with wd 40 before I started. The car is at 174,000 miles and the pads were still good with little wear.

It is amazing how quite the car is now.​

 

Just bite the bullet and have a independent shop install them, and be happy you saved $370.
Go have coffee and be happy!

 

Believe it or not, if u can do lowering springs the rear hubs a relative easy. Its 5 lug nuts, unplug the wheel sensor, unbolted the caliper, remove the rotor & 4 more bolts......then it pops out.

Just be glad its not a front bearing.....their a lil harder.

 

Brake work is much more troublesome where they salt the roads, as described earlier.

The threaded holes however are very worthwhile.

My point is that I doubt a car in Palmdale develops much chassis component rust.

 

It is hard to say how loud that is, but mine was similar to that before I changed it out.

 

Use a lot of wd 40 or penetrating oil and spray both the front and back. Then whack it good and many times. I did not use the threaded holes. Whacking it worked for me.

 

Good luck, Spider-Man!
Another cause of wheel bearing failure is lateral G forces from those folks who (ahem!) tend to corner very quickly. Let us know how this comes out as u suspect the bearing is JUST good enough for normal service and folks Like me will also be replacing it early.

 

With or without rust, it's still a relatively easy job. Just requires a rust penatrator (WD40 as mentioned) & a lil more man power.

They typically salt our roads & the 14 freeway every winter to prevent black ice so I've had my fair share of rusted rotors sticking to the hubs. This is where a good use of anti seize comes in handy