Wheel Bearings

[Guest tomt]

While reading the post about the questionable Reatta for sale in Sarasota, one of the posts noted that it had a noisy front wheel bearing. This made me think of a question that I had asked my dealer/mechanic in the past:

What maintainence should be performed on the bearings of our cars? There are recommendations in the service manual that came with the car, but it can apply to front or rear drive.

My car, by the way is an 89 with about 82K. The dealer suggested that I do nothing unless I hear a problem. His reasoning was that unnecessary repair could risk damaging the anti-lock sensors.

Just curious, do you agree, and do any of you do anything to them.

[Jim]

The wheel bearings are a sealed unit and nothing can be done with them as preventive maintenance. If you hear a noise coming from the front end, while driving, turn the steering slightly one way or the other and if the noise goes away, you have a bad bearing and need to replace it.

[padgett]

As to the ABS sensors, the answer is simple, remove them before replacing the bearing, it is just one screw.

The fronts are common to millions of cars and what usually goes bad, the rears are avalable but special to ABS cars.

I use Locltite blue on all of the caliper and hub screws.

Telling which is making the noise can be difficult - see the my earlier posts.

[Guest tomt]

Thanks guys for your response. Sounds like if it ain' broke don't fix it is the best method. And mine ain't.