[s-cars] Wheel Bearing replacement labor question

[jerryscott at wispertel.net]

Fred
Did you use the Harbor Freight tool or something better?
Jerry

--- munrof at sympatico.ca wrote:

From: "Fred Munro" <munrof at sympatico.ca>
To: "'Manuel Sanchez'" <manuelsanchez at starpower.net>,	"'s-car-list list'" <s-car-list at audifans.com>
Subject: Re: [s-cars] Wheel Bearing replacement labor question
Date: Fri, 17 Sep 2010 09:03:14 -0400

Manny;

I can believe the shop on the press setup time. These bearings are often
very tight in the housing. I wouldn't choose to remove the strut to change a
bearing - the press setup is a real PITA due to the force required to move
the bearing and improper setup could damage the housing. The best way to R&R
these is on the car using the proper hub and bearing pulling tool. I had the
right front bearing go on the S6 a couple years ago. A friend has a good hub
puller tool and we had both sides done in 2 hours. The bearings were so
tight that a 1" drive IR impact gun on the puller tool wouldn't even move
them, but a breaker bar with a 4 foot pipe had no problem getting them out.
I always get the bearings from the dealer - the OEM bearings last a long
time and I'm not that enamored of the job that I want to do it again sooner
than absolutely necessary. These are split-race bearings and the shop has to
know what they are doing when they press the bearing into the housing and
the hub into the bearing. The new bearing can be damaged if they press on
the wrong race at the wrong time. A bearing damaged by improper installation
will only last 20,000 miles or so.

The strut cartridge retaining nuts are best loosened with the strut in the
car because you don't have to worry about holding the strut while you try to
break the nuts loose. The proper tool makes this a trivial task. If you
don't have the proper tool you can sometimes get them with a pipe wrench
through the spring coil. The nuts can be rusted on and can be hard to remove
but I don't know why a shop would need 2 hours to get them off.

HTH

Fred Munro
'97 S6

-----Original Message-----
From: s-car-list-bounces at audifans.com
[mailto:s-car-list-bounces at audifans.com] On Behalf Of Manuel Sanchez
Sent: September 16, 2010 8:39 PM
To: s-car-list list
Subject: [s-cars] Wheel Bearing replacement labor question

Fellow S-heads,

All this wheel bearing talk seems timely.

Questions are;
a shop is quoting me 2 hours of labor total to press out my 2 front  
wheel bearings and replace with new ones. I have already removed the  
strut housing from the car and given them to the shop, so my  
inexperienced thinking was that I've done a good part of the labor  
for them. Again my inexperienced thinking hopes that all they have to  
do is carry the housing to the press and press them out and press the  
new ones in, which to me seems like it should take less than an hour  
per housing.

I have been told that there is "set-up" time because the housings are  
an "unusual shape", that and the fact that my old races "were really  
seized in the housing" and so they had to use the "big hydraulic press".

Another bit of service that was done was the replacement of the big  
giant strut cartridge retaining nuts. This labor is also said to have  
taken almost 2 hours to do both. The springs were not under load. To  
my untrained mind this also seem like a really long time, 1 hour per  
nut.

Are these reasonable labor charges based on the fact that I had  
delivered the strut housings out of the car? Would it have been  
easier to remove and reinstall the front bearings if it was all still  
installed on the car?

Thanks.

Manny
95.5 urS6 Avant (still strut-less)
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