1992 Subaru Legacy L wagon AWD non-turbo non-ABS

I'm in the midwest in the U.S. With the cold weather that has beset
us, I hear wheel bearing noise from the left front wheel. Goes away
after I drive a couple of miles. I don't hear it when driving from
work to home after the car has been sitting in the work parking lot
for the day but I have heard it the last 3 days in a row when starting
to drive from my garage to go to work in the cold morning. Wondering
what a car shop is going to charge me to replacing the bearing(s).

I'll take a wag at it. Figure $100 for the bearing and new seals and
another for labor. Curious to learn how close I was.

Vanguard wrote:

Haha, funny that I found this article. My bearing acutally just jammed
up (NOT FUN). But I ended up buying a new one for bout 55 bucks, and
took me.... give it 4 hours to replace it. Found out though that the
part of the axle the bearing rests on actually got worn down, so now I
need to replace it. Thats fun right there!

--parker

"johninKY" <gflong (AT) nospam (DOT) kih.net> wrote


Dealer quoted $500 for one side. Car shop was close but said to do
both sides at $750 since I've never had them replaced in this 14-year
old car. Apparently this job is very labor intensive since the
knuckle has to be removed from the car to drive out the inner bearing,
press in the bearings and that means disconnecting or removing the
brakes, the strut, tie rod, and axle shaft. Basically they would be
dismantling and reassembling the whole damn suspension and drive to
that knuckle. It was when I read the instructions at
http://arrc.epnet.com/autoapp/8797/8...l_Bearings.htm
that I decided this one I wouldn't do myself.

"Vanguard" <vanguard (AT) domain (DOT) invalid> wrote

I just did it on my car-- it was not too bad. Getting the knuckle off the
car took about an hour, took it to a local shop, had them press the old
bearing out and the new bearings in. Then about another hour to put all back
togther and then off to the shop for an alignment. Total cost was about
$150.00

Steve

Although it may appear to be a bunch of work involved, it really isn't that
much. Remove 2 strut bolts and the strut is out of the problem. Another 2
bolts and the caliper is out of the way. One pinch bolt down at the ball
joint, the axle nut and the tie rod end and the hub is free. Problem
areas are removing the axle nut and the tie rod end. You can rent an
electric impact gun and a tie rod puller.

"johninKY" <gflong (AT) nospam (DOT) kih.net> wrote


The impact wrench was one of the tools that I didn't have. I didn't
think about renting one. The cost for buying one would outweigh the
savings of doing the labor myself. I couldn't get the bolts off using
a breaker bar and I didn't like using a 12-point socket since that
could round off the points on the bolt head or nut (I need to get some
6-point sockets).

Oscar,

Had to chuckle when I read your comment. Never broke a 3/4 drive but
easily managed to break several 1/2" drive sockets without any problem.
That's why I moved up to the 3/4" stuff and then finally an impact gun.
Getting too old to be pulling on cheater bars.

"SuperPoo" <iamadumbfuk (AT) gmail (DOT) com> wrote

Now that's an idea. Pay the shop a fee to have them just loosen and
resnug. I checked on renting an electric impact wrench. $24/day.
Then I remembered by buddy has an air impact setup. Waiting for a
reply on my e-mail to him.