I really appreciate your offer to help get the bearings but I'm in Nova Scotia, Canada and I have to try to get them on before Tuesday night, I'm heading back to the great white North for another 2 weeks and am trying to get the car back on the road for the lil missus. Thanks again for your offer.

 

I need Wheel Bearings! My Mini is about 6 years old now and It's starting to making a Whirling sound. I'm going to change the front and rear, but I think it's just the rear making the noise. I see a lot on google.com when I search 2005 Mini Cooper Wheel Bearing. Are they all the same? Or do you recommend getting the sets from the dealership?

 

Its very sad that the wheel bearings are going noisey so soon, mine are the same. I did take it back to the dealership when it was still under warranty. They said the bearing are fine but the wheel alignement is out!!! I paid $250 to have wheel alignement done, that was a hell of a price to pay. I think the wheel alignement was fine, all my tires looked good, no feathering just lovely even wear. They also said I need to replace my rear tires to stop the noise, the rear tire where only 40% worn down so I said no!
I now have new tires on the back and also the noise but I'm a year out of warranty now and $250 for alignement that I didn't need, that could have gone to the price of buying wheel bearings and fitting them myself, job done!

I love my Mini, so sad about this wheel bearing thing. If you had a wheel bearing go it was seen as bad luck, one of those things like getting a punture! With the Mini its a part you will HAVE to replace @40,000 miles + Or sooner!
O.K feel better now! Happy motoring!!

 

Does anyone know of a rear wheel bearing upgrade to taper roller bearings?
I notice that in the 60's the Mini Cooper version of the Mini had taper roller bearings instead of ball bearings. I think BMW should have used taper rollers on the back wheels, would have been so easy and very reliable, shame they didn't but would love to know if anyone does a upgrade hup with taper roller bearings!

 

My LF bearing went 119k miles, the right front went 92k miles. The RR went 143k miles.

However next Tuesday I'm headed to Turners to confirm that I need to replace LF and RF again - if this diagnosis is confirmed they will have traveled only 30k miles!

I do autocross, and I am also running a non-OEM wheel offsets though, so I consider the bearings as wear items and don't grind my teeth in most cases...

I am looking forward to Turner's results however, as 30k is a bit of a surprise. Perhaps they'll disagree with the preliminary diagnosis, which would be lovely and spare me about $500 for the replacement of the pair.

Cheers,

Charlie

 

I see you can buy wheel bearings without the ABS sensor, looks like the ABS sensor makes up more than half the cost of the replacement bearing. Anyone got any info on this?

Thanks!

 

The wheel bearings don't come with the wheel speed sensors, that is odd. Most likely that is from some generic non MINI company.
We sell brand new ones for $200, and used ones for $100.

 

Thanks for the reply. You can buy the speed sensors as a replacment part on it's own, so you must be able to take it off the hub and put it back on the new hub.
Hope someone has some more info on this!

Thanks!

 

First off - I love my MINI, but it's attachment to BMW is obvious when buying parts. When you need parts, get ready to pay, pay, pay.
I recently replaced my front wheel bearings on my '02 MCS @ 80K miles.
Cost - $140 each. WTF?
Last year I replaced the wheel bearings on my '98 Buick Regal @ 108K miles
Cost - $55 each.
Now my son's Acura CL needs wheel bearings @ 162K miles, getting good at this!
Cost - $19 each.

Let's see, an American-Made Buick wheel bearing lasts 35% longer than the BMW/MINI and cost 60% less.
An Acura wheel bearing lasts 2X longer and cost 86% less.

Here's another one, a replacement cat-back OEM exhaust on an '02 MCS will run about $1000. I just did a cat-back OEM replacement on my son's Acura and it cost $150 shipped to my door and took all of ~20 minutes to replace.

If I didn't love the driving experience of my MINI so much I think I would be looking for a nice bullet proof Acura for myself.

 

I replaced my run flats with normal tires at weekend. What I thought was wheel bearing noise has gone! The car drives better now than it did when it was new. I am a very happy man! I am lucky I have a spare wheel but if I had a cooper S I would still get rid of the run flats, very NOISEY tires!