99 OBW, wheel bearing replacement?

[Rooster2]

I posted about 10 days ago that I had to replace the half shaft on my 99 OBW. The tip of the road wheel end of the half shaft had broken into two pieces in the threaded area where the large nut is threaded on.

 

I know this broken half shaft is hard on the wheel bearing, but the shop thought the bearing is okay. Now 10 days later with few miles driven, I hear a pulsating scraping noise on slow left turns only from the right front, where the half shaft was replaced. I don't associate this noise with a bad wheel bearing, but maybe I am wrong. It could be a brake problem I am guessing. I plan on taking the car back to the shop tomorrow to diagnose and correct the problem.

 

This same shop is quoting 4 hours of labor only, totaling $360 to replace the wheel bearing if that is the problem. This seems like excessive labor. I checked my old receipts, and had the same wheel bearing replaced in 2007 at a different shop that included bearing, 2 seals, and labor for right at $200. Yea, costs go up with inflation, but Is the shop quoting 4 hours over charging me?

Edited April 6, 2011 by Rooster2
maybe fixed, as per my last post to this topic

[GeneralDisorder]

It depends on the method they use. Wheel bearings can be a pain on EJ cars - the outer race is REAL solid in the knuckle. Depends on if they use a hub-tamer type tool, or a press, or farm it out to a machine shop.

 

With rust, etc..... I could see it taking 4 hours. The bearings themselves are only about $35 to $45. You could almost buy a hub-tamer for what they have quoted and just do the job yourself. I have also used the "Front Wheel Drive Service Adaptor Set" from Harbor Frieght which runs about $100 now to do the wheel bearings. In combination with a few other tools and using the hub-tamer manual as a reference on how to set it up it worked well.

 

GD

[unibrook]

Here is what my bad bearing sounded like:

 

[Rooster2]

Here is what my bad bearing sounded like:

 

 

Thanks Unibrook for the sound bite. It is how I remember a bad bearing sound. Sounds like an rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

 

Mine sounded differently, more like a scraping sound, but would stop making noise, if the brake was applied. So.......... I just pulled the pass front road wheel where I heard the noise coming from. I saw where the dust/dirt rotor backing plate was bent close to the rotor. I bent it back, and it has stopped the noise from that side of the car. It still makes a little of the same noise from driver's front wheel. I will pull that road wheel to see if the same problem persists.