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I have a cousin with a beetle that has bad wheel bearings its going to cost her a few hundred dollars a peice to change the im pretty good with cars so she asked me if I could change them but I have never worked on a VW before. does anyone know if there are any special tools you need to change the bearings or if they are alot of work to do. any advise will be helpful
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Buy/get/find service manuals for that stretch of model year and make. Best advise I can give.
http://www.bimmerzone.com/category/VW_Service_Manual.html
or with a basic search on Ebay for probably less than half that for a print, a quarter of that for a cd-rom version.From what I remember the bearings are pressed in. So, remove the hubs from the vehicle bring them and the new bearings to a machine shop or a dealer and get the new ones pressed in. You will be tempted (as I was) to try doing it yourself with a big vice. Don’t! Even if they go in a fraction of a degree off it will ruin the hub and bearing. And those hubs are pricey. When you install the hubs back onto the car make sure you have new “half shaft hex bolts.” I’m not sure why but VW stresses this alot. Maybe the bolts are only made to be torqued once. But they make it sound like you will die if you don’t install new half shaft hex bolts. It’s really not that hard a job. You would be best off with a manual, but if you have a decent working knowledge of mechanics you should be able to figure it out. Keep us updated and good luck
I’ve pressed bearings in before using a plank of wood and a c-clamp or hammer so it is doable, maybe not recommended, but I didn’t have access to a bearing press. I’d be tempted though to just buy the bearing assembly and install new ones rather than service the old ones cause getting those old races out are a pain in the ass.
i would say that using otc hub tamer would be best bet or vw shop with in car bearing pressing tool would help out.
yes, they are a little annoying to get to.
Now days, most shops are cheating bastards, they used to charge $35 to press out and in within 10 minutes for both sides. Today they want $140. Harbor Freight Tools sells the bearing kit for only $90 plus tax. You could hammer the old bearings out.
Depending on the model you might get lucky. If it’s a newer beetle they might be complete assemblies that don’t require a press. I’m with tracking down a service manual to see what the procedure would be. If you need to use a press perhaps you could take it somewhere to have it pressed after you got it off the vehicle. Good luck and keep us posted.
Old post I know, but in case someone later on needs similar advice with any VW of that generation on the Golf platform.
The best and easiest way to do a bearing job is to remove the steering knuckles rather than try and bash the old bearings out while still in the car. Remove the axle nut, 30mm I believe, and then lift the car to get the wheels off. Scribe some good marks on the upper knuckle where the strut mounts. Remove the caliper and brake etc. Rather than remove the lower ball joint simply remove the bigger bolt – the horizontal one – and slide the shaft of the ball joint out of the knuckle. Do it that way over removing the 3 bolts on the bottom that way you don’t disturb the alignment.
Then head over to a garage or machine shop and have the bearings swapped.
The other sneaky way is to “harvest” a set of knuckles from a wreckers. They’ll be cheap. Have bearings swapped pre hand and then just install them when the old ones come out.
The one beauty of VW shared platforms of that era especially is that you can very easily upgrade to bigger brakes, since different models or trim lines came with either basic brakes or much nicer ones.
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