Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums General Troubleshooting Has anyone changed wheelbearings

I hear that familiar moaning up front that changes when I turn the wheel and I suspect the right front wheelbearing. In a recent post someone said it cost them less than $200 to have a shop replace it.
My question is, is it worth doing yourself to save the money or are there special tools needed that make it a pain in the a$$? After reading my Haynes manual it sounds like the second one.

I did mine. You can hammer th old one out but the new one needs to be pressed in. I had NAPA do this for me. I think they charged something like $20-25.

Well, since you have read up on it I won't go into the details of everything involved, but I can tell you that from experience of working on all kinds of FWD vehicles that front wheel bearings are a pain. The CV shaft nut is almost always frozen and without air tools are next to impossible to remove. Then after the steering knuckle is removed from the car, the hub has to be pressed out of the bearing and then the bearing is pressed out of the knuckle. Taking it apart is no problem because you don't have to worry about messing up the damaged bearing, but pressing those three pieces back together can be tricky. Once it is all together and installed back on the car, you are going to want to have the front end realigned.

If you want to do this in your driveway, by all means more power to you. It may be possible to do it that way, but I would recommend having a shop take care of it, especially if you dont have the air equipment.

IIRC 2hrs labor plus parts at a shop. I decided to have the front right on my '97 done at a shop last summer, rather than my driveway, cause it was 90+ degrees, I face west and it's a PITA job. Can be done without affecting alignment.

In all my years of working out at the garage, I don't remember a mechanic reinstalling a tie rod end to the knuckle (or a ball joint for that matter) without checking the alignment of the front. That is not something that you can just eyeball and expect it to be ok. Yeah, if you are lucky enough to get it back together just perfect, you won't need one, and in some cases after it has been put back together the alignment will be fine. But there have been some cases in which it needed a slight adjustment. Remember that when you pull the knuckle from the car, you are loosening quite a few bolts.

Choose to do it however you want to... I'm not getting any money for recommending that you do it my way. This is just my viable advice from my years of experience to make sure that when you get it done that it is done right and that you aren't stuck bringing the car back later.

I don't mean to hijack the thread, but I think I may have the same problem on my car. Sounds like tire noise while going straight and taking right hand curves, but goes away when taking left handers. Anyway, is this somehting that would possibly be covered under my ESP or no? If it is I'll take her to get looked at.

Are you sure you changed the correct wheel bearing? There have been discussions in the past about which bearing produces the sound when going to the left or the right. Your symptoms sound exactly like those cause by a wheel bearing, and I don't see how a mis-alignment would give the sounds you are describing.

I've replaced one in my mystique, and I did it without using a press. It's not a fun job, but it can be done. You have to use a driver just slightly smaller than the bearing, and tap gently to take the old one out and then tap gently to put the new one in.

It seems to me that removing and re-installing the tie-rod should not affect the alignment, as long as you don't lengthen or shorten the tie-rod in the process.

I just had a front wheel bearing replaced and it cost $170. Not a bad price. I was going to try it myself, but didn't want to take the chance of messing up the new bearing.

I had a 95 'tour and I don't want to be a bearer of bad news but after I had my front springs replaced on a recall. I was going through bearings EVERY 2-3 months back and forth from left to right sides! For about a year and a half .And was told by my dealer that there is nothing they could do at all about the problem. I told them that I wanted them to put on a whole new spindle assembly they of course said NO! So I asked them why would the bearings be going bad so quickly. When I never had a problem with anything front end wise with the car-until I got the new springs?? They looked into it and said the springs were putting to much pressure on the spindle assembly which would tend to wear out the bearings. Make sense It don't to me either After the 6th or 7th bearing change I sold traded the car in for a FOCUS.