Good morning folks. I think I have a wheel bearing on the way out as I'm getting that mechanical rumbling sound. It manifests itself worst at about 80mph on nice good condition motorway tarmac and the noise becomes pretty dominant. I've jacked up all 4 corners and spun the wheels and checked for play - no play noticeable but the front right certainly sounds a bit rough, not massively, but certainly rougher than the others.

 

What sort of job is it to change? I've got the regular spanners and sockets and have a 20 ton press. Is this all that I need and is the job straightforward? The reason I ask is that even though I'm pretty good with these things and have always worked on my own cars the Skoda is completely new to me.

 

If all is easy enough I'll order a bearing from the local motor factors.

 

Cheers Julian

Don't quote me on this, my Haynes manual has grown legs...

AFAIK the wheel bearing is a complete bolt on item, the days of pressing a bearing into the hub are gone.

This may help:

www.workshop-manuals.com/

Local motor factors are handy but not necessarily the best deal, try www.mister-auto.com

Thanks, you're spot on, new hub needed. I looked on-line and found the local motor factors offered a similar price so have the new bearing/hub in my hand.

 

I had to buy a splined socket for the three nuts that hold the hub to the strut lower portion - they look like they're going to be tight barstewards :-(

 

Julian

Well the on-line manual says to remove drive shaft nut, disc and calliper and ''push'' the drive shaft back in order to get to the three splined bolts holding the bearing housing on. Firstly the drive shaft was as tight as a you know what and after much thwacking with my large copper hammer it freed off. The splined nuts were solid and almost impossible to get square on to and I thought I risked buggering the CV joint bellows.

 

I went to you tube for some inspiration and watched a tutorial on a Golf wheel bearing and it wasn't until half way through that I realised it had a conventional bearing - but it gave me the right idea. In about 15 minutes I undid the wishbone joint, backplate, and track-rod end, and after slackening the bolt holding the lower assembly to the strut I pulled the whole lot off.

 

From then on with the thing on the bench and with my Snap-on 1/2" windy gun running direct from the air tank at 150psi I just managed to undo the three splined bolts and the bearing housing dropped off!

 

The good news is that the bearing is rough and horrible so I've found the fault which is good given the price of the thing.

 

I'm going to stick it back together tomorrow with copper slip on all the bits, and I don't see any problems now unless turning the ignition on to turn the steering wheel with the ABS cable undone has created a fault......

 

Julian.

Thanks for sharing your experience, any ABS fault should clear once driven.

Although a fault code will be stored it may clear after a certain number of cycles.

Let us know how you get on putting it all back together.

Went back together like a dream - copper slip on all threads etc so bits don't seize up. I'm astonished how quickly stuff was rusting solid as it's only 2009.

 

Steering wheel light and ABS light were on, but steering light went off when I twirled the wheel and ABS light extinguished as I drove off - happy days!  Why a wheel bearing went at 29,000 miles is a mystery - the others still seem fine......

 

Now I need to get 4 normal wheel nuts to replace those stupid locking ones with the daft ends - they look rather weak to me and I can see hours with the die-grinder chewing the head off in the future :-(

 

Julian