Since I have a lot of my car apart I was thinking of maybe replacing my wheel bearings. Have any of you HAD to replace them? What was the mileage on them?

i replaced all 4 on my gxl with 106k miles.

The rear driver side was making a real nice hum at 60mph.

Unfortunately i didnt narrow it down to the rear until after i replaced both fronts.

The front ones are a bitch to replace. Mazda tries to sell you a whole new hub, but you can get just the bearings. if you have a press, i suppose you can press them out, but what i had to do was grind through the race with a die grinder, being very careful not to nick the hub. Then i pounded em out with a hammer and chisel. It took forever and it sucked bad.

The rear ones are super easy, just in and out.

When I did my 5-lug swap, I discovered the rear hubs hummed, more like roared the faster I got. I had no idea what the mileage on those parts was. I didn't know which side it was, or both, so I just got both done. After doing a little research, I just paid a shop to do it for me. https://www.nopistons.com/forums/pub...R#>/tongue.png

I need to do that soon im getting that noise at 60mph

I have 150k on mine with no humming... I think I will just wait until they go out..

can you like feel it in the steering wheel?

Eep! My FC has 173k on the body! Should I be scared? @_@



Some of the bushings are lookin pretty bad, so I'll need to get those replaced some time soon.

I guarantee those are playdough by now!

cant feel it in the wheel at all. but the hum was like baldy said, a roar. it would drowned out my radio and exhaust at highway speeds.



The rear bearings probably took me about a half hour a piece, and the fronts were probably closer to 3 hours a piece, man those things sucked ass.

Actually, there's a how-to floating around somewhere on the front bearings. If you take a dremel and make two notches in the hub 180 degrees apart such that you can get a drift behind the races, you can pound them out. Once you have the notches, the next time will be easy. The right front on my car was way bad when I got it with 99k on the clock. It's not an easy procedure, but quite do-able.

Mazdatrix has the writeup. Don't let a bad bearing go too long, it'll devour the hub. If the hub is scored then it's either find one at a junkyard or cough up $500. If you grease the bearings when you do the brakes, they'll last forever - or at least as long as mine (420,000+ miles).

the fronts aren't that hard, i did it the mazdatrix way. Travisty, have you had problems with the hub becoming loose? I keep on having to tighten down the spindle nut to reseat the hub because after a week of driving it gets loose again. I"ve tried tightening it a bit too much and abit too little and the hub still doesn't want to stay tight on the spindle.



The rears are easy? i thought they were hard, u used a press for the rears?

I seem to remember the bearings being kind of expensive as well

i had this happen too, i suspect the race didnt seat 100% eventually i stopped having to adjust it, or it stayed tight

My rear wheel bearings have over 450k original miles on them.



On the other hand the front wheel bearings have been swapped out twice in that same time.



C

I am interested in this because I have my rear hub off to remove the ABS stuff for a friend. How do you remove the rear hub from the carrier without the SST's? I priced those and it would be about $150 for all 3. Do you just use a press? Is there a certain size nut to press it out with? Will you ruin things if you press it apart?



Thanks.

gahd, having bad wheel bearings is such a bitch! my 85 CRX has one gone now and that **** is annoying the hell outta me. i can hear it from like 35mph on. my corolla had bearings so bad i could jack the car up and move the left front back and forth about an inch and a half with all the lug nuts and everything tight- dont let it get that far!!! i had to replace the whole spindle.