Wife's 2006 MCS with 85K on the clock. The damn passenger front wheel speed spensor rubbed up against the crank pulley or belt and I got the trifecta.

Ordered a non-oem sensor and of course this is the original sensor in there and I had to drill it out.

Broke 3 bits trying to get it out and finally got it done.....only for it to throw the code again.

I have a code reader that can show real time monitoring of wheel speeds (and the ability to reset the ABS lights) and sure enough I was getting an intermittent signal at higher speeds. That meant I probably damaged the magnetic strip on the inside face of the bearing.

When to clean it and saw the damage. Luckily I have a spare wheel bearing from when I was dealing with a similar issue on my GP.

Well, those 13mm bolts holding the bearing in are super tight and of course they started stripping. I managed to get 3 of them out with a little heat and some PB blaster but the 4th one stripped completely and I ended up drilling it out with 4 bits of increasing size.

Had to whack the utter crap out of the axle to get the bearing to release with a 2lb sledge while having the nut on there to prevent mushrooming. When reinstalling I put a little antiseize on the shaft. Reinstall the new bolts temporarily to hold the bearing in for said whackage.

After putting some antiseize on the new bolts and installing the new bearing, my heart sank because the lugs on my wife's car are 12mm........and the new bearing has.......14mm holes.

Luckily I had 4 extra 14mm lugs. So 3 wheels have 12mm lugs and one wheel has 14mm. Should be alright.

Then my heart sank again as I thought the 17" JCW wheels wouldn't fit with the 14mm lugs but luckily they did.

Now I don't know if the 15" holies will work. Pretty sure they are drilled for 14mm lugs. What a pain.

Went for a test drive after resetting the ABS error code and all is good in the hood.

How much money did I save vs taking it to the dealer to get replaced? I'm guessing like $800 at least.

Here's a quick video I made after I was done.

 

Man had to work for that one…

Agree at least $800, probably more

 

For giggles I emailed the SA at the local MINI dealer.

I'd say I hit the nail on the ol' head there. ...Although he gave the quote for my GP instead of my wife's 06 but very similar price.

What's even more sad is that I walked into that dealer to pick up the bolts and the axle nut. I was charged $2.83 a bolt and $9.50 for the axle nut and yet in the quote below it's almost double the price. How utterly pathetic. Most dealers charge 20% BELOW list....these guys are just thieves man. Luckily the parts rep knows me and knows that I've been a long time customer.

 

I just took a 14mm and a 12mm out to where I store my 15" holies........and THANK YOU JESUS the 14mm bolts work so I can use them for winter on the wife's mutant stud car now. Wooooooo hooooooooooo!

 

Local dealers suck to get parts at. My local Mini dealer marks everything up 30-40% above list price. To add insult to injury, they never have parts in stock for the R53. I recently called to get a T-Map sensor and they wanted $190 something. The part listed for ~$150 and was available for about $112 at online Mini Dealers and slightly more at resellers like Way. Of course, they didn't have it in stock and said it could take a couple of weeks. I said no thank you to close to a 100% mark-up for the privilege of paying them for parts they don't even carry. I left a google review and got a pleasant, but not helpful response.

Of course, this isn't unique to Mini. All of the other dealers in my area do the same thing. It's not surprising since many have the same corporate parent. I'm sure the walk-in diy customer is small potatoes to them and they are just protecting the markup for their own service and the shops they supply to. It just sucks, because I would have liked to support my local business and not have to wait for shipping when my car is off the road.