So my car was inspected today and front left wheel bearing needs to be changed. BMW/MINI quoted me $200 for the wheel bearing and $110 for the work.

Now my questions are, can I do this myself? What do I need to change it? Has anyone of you done it? Is it hard? Is this included in Inspection II?

Is there a how-to on this?

Thanks in advance!

 

Bearings are cheap...... labor is not. I'm suprised they have it priced that way. If the dealership removes the spindle to do the job, does the price include an alignment?

www.harborfreight.com should have a universal kit that pulls the hub & the bearing from the hub-- without removing the spindle.

Having a Bentley manual comes in handy when it comes to torque'ing down axle down (and gives you the generic How-to)

 

Looks like it's a hub assembly from MINI...

doesn't look hard at all.

 

Looks like it comes down to how hard it'll be to loosen the 4 bolts
that hold the bearing to the hub, which can vary from car to car.
With a breaker bar and some liquid wrench, might be easy, might be a bear.

 

I did this in about 90 minutes and the new bearing assembly was $110. You can also have a bearing shop press a new one into the hub assembly for about $70.

You need a breaker bar, 22mm socket (if memory serves me), Torx bit for rotor, bearing hub assembly, and a new axle nut is recommended. Then just normal tools...

Remove center wheel cap if you can, have someone step on brakes, and loosen the axle nut.

Elevate and remove tire, remove brakes: caliper and rotor (need torx bit for rotor), remove nuts from back of hub assy, remove axle nut and washer, slowly and carefully slide hub off while taking care to not bonk the ABS sensor. (the manual says to remove abs sensor, but it wasn't necessary and didn't come out easily).

Refit new hub and torque all the stuff to spec.

Oh, if you turn the wheel all the way opposite the wheel you are working on, the hub rear nuts should be easy to work with, the front nuts were no prob to access.

 

They wanted 240$ for an alignment.

It sounds pretty easy, my friend works at Mitsubishi so he probably have all the tools, if there's nothing special you need?

 

a bearing replacement is easy with normal hand tools. you will need a socket to fit the axle nut and a torque wrench, but everything else is normal. a Bentley manual is a good thing to have on hand and i would shop around to other dealers for a bearing. i know you can find a bearing for far less than 200. bolt out, bolt in, just like the photo.