So I'm looking into my options to finally quiet the growl coming from my front end. Verified the other day that it is my passenger front wheel bearing gone bad. Ive looked up some info about what goes into the repairs and I am weighing my options. It looks like a tall job for a home mechanic to do, expecially since I dont have access to a shop press. However I hav heard that accessing the entire hub assembly as a whole is about 5-7 bolts or so. My plan is to possibly go to my local parts yard and pull a hub assembly with a good bearing in it and swap. Not looking for it to last forever, maybe about a year or so hopefully or at least so I can use the time gained to make some cosmetic upgrades. The assembly runs about $45. Figure thats worth the trouble since it seems that the replair cost for shop to work on it runs about $250-300 per wheel. Looking for any thoughts or other suggestions, or affirmation that my plan is solid.

 

Buy the bearing and seals at rockauto for $45. Remove knuckle. Take knuckle into shop. Give them $20 to swap the bearing out. Install seals yourself with hammer and old outer bearing race.

 

Ya that's just it. No shops around my area for miles,and I don't really have any shops around here that I have connections to for doing stuff like this on the low. just seems easier to go to the yard so that I could just swap it all in a days work. No press required.

 

It's a 13+ year old car. LKQ would be your easiest and most cost effective option.

LKQ = Like Kind Quality (aka - your local salvage yard part with a guarantee)
Your only keeping the car for a short time after the repair.

 

Search you tube for a Maximas wheel bearing replacement. There is a good video showing how to do it with a hammer and punch.

 

I replaced mine on what felt like the coldest day of the year last year.

It's an easy job if you are inclined to do it.

Order online at advance using code p20 or a123, whichever saves you the most money, then do in store pickup.

Once I had it off, I took the assembly into the basement and installed the bearing so when I went outside I was able to just bolt it back on.

I used the old bearing to "hammer" the new one in. I'm sure other have their opinion on this method but it has worked fine for me on many wheel bearings.

Most cars have an assembly that you can buy, which comes with a new hub, bearing, etc, with abs sensor, so you can just do a straight swap. To my knowledge there isn't one for this car. I did a traiblazer with this product and it was $90 and took about 20 minutes start to finish (with impact).

For my brothers honda civic I just took it to a local shop and they did the bearing R&R for $30.

 

I just replaced my drivers side bearing last weekend and I'm going to do the passenger side this weekend in my driveway with hand tools. I bought Timken bearings and seals from Autozone (best price on Timken bearings by far at 26.99 ea) and I bought a seal puller ($10) and front wheel bearing puller / pusher from harborfreight.com ($99). You may also need to buy an 1-1/16" and an 1-1/8" sockets to use the puller if you dont have them. The puller made the job so much easier and I was able to remove and replace the bearing with the knuckle on the car. I wouldn't recommend using the old hammer and chisel technique unless you want to be banging a chisel into the old outer race and then banging the old outer race against the new bearing to seat it in place, seems like you could really mess the bearing up by getting all those metal filings in the bearings - but thats just my 2 cents