rev up your engines, today I'm gonna show you how to make your wheel bearings last
twice as long, now in the olden days and I was a young mechanic, wheel bearings
were part of maintenance, you would take the cover off, you would take the wheel
bearings out, you would regrease them with wheel bearing grease, then put them all
back together again, now I was going to show you some wheel bearing grease that
we used to use, but it's been so long since I had to do one, I couldn't find
any in my garage, I know there's some back there somewhere, but it's so old and
dried out it's probably not even good anymore, and if somebody brought me a really
old car, I'd have to go buy a new can of the stuff, because modern-day wheel
bearings most of them are like this hub assembly, the wheel bearing is built
inside, you can't take it apart, you have to replace the whole unit, and it's
sealed unit with seals on both sides to keep dirt out, now in the old days when
we had to repack them if you were bad and you didn't and they wore out, you
could get a set of front wheel bearings for like twelve dollars
they didn't cost much, well with these modern systems, something like the front
bearings on this Celica which isn't that modern it's 94, there pressed on
you can't lubricate them, but you need a machine press to take it apart and put
it back together again it's a real expensive job, the newer ones they're a
whole assembly and some of these assemblies not only do they cost a small
fortune, but on kind of oddball cars like European ones, just replacing them can
cost thousands of dollars, so of course you want to make it last as long as they
possibly can, and here's tips on how to do that, now since they're all sealed
units there's no greasing for you to do, but seals what I do, they break down over
time, my advice is you want to stay away from both deep water and especially from
saltwater in the ocean, driving on the beach by the ocean may seem cool, but you
get that sea mist water and it gets inside there, it'll start eating up your
bearings, and the next one as nutty as it sounds is, take care your tires, if you
have the wrong air pressure, don't have enough air, they ride more squashed
that strains the bearings more, the more you strain the bearings, the faster
they're gonna wear out, even worn out struts or shocks, making it bounce a lot
more, there will be more damage done from the friction and bumping, and it can wear
them out faster, and of course be careful where you're driving, say you hit curbs maybe
your wife hits curbs all the time, that little bump might not seem like much but
if it knocks the alignment off or slightly bend something, then it's not on
the wheel bearings sitting right it's got more pressure on one side or the
other, and over time it'll wear out, over the years I seen this literally hundreds
of times, a customer will come in, I can hear the wheel
bearing roaring away, I'll say well your wheel bearing is bad just on the one side
I'll say, now has this car ever been wrecked, and they'll say yeah last year
it got wrecked on that side, the car got wrecked on that side obviously a little
bit damage was done to the suspension, it can take thousands and thousands of
thousands of miles to wear out these wheel bearings, because their steel
ball bearings and some of the older ones were roller bearings, but if they're off
a little bit you think how many millions of times that thing is spinning while
you're driving down the road, eventually that little bit off is gonna wear the
metal and then the wheel bearings will start making noises, so you if you see any
of those big potholes coming up, hey slow down or
try to go around them or over them if your cars wider than the pothole, because
every time you hit those potholes that's damaging the suspension, and the wheel
bearings can wear out, and conversely even if you haven't hit anything, if
you're going down the highway and your car is
starting to get the shakes and your alignment is off, something's going on
with anything in suspension, you want to get that fixed cuz over time all that
shaking is eventually gonna make the wheel bearings wear out faster, now if
your wheel bearings do wear out, here is a tip if you want the new ones to last
as long as possible, get OEM wheel bearings, do not buy the cheapest ones
you can find that are made in China, over the years
I even tried a long time ago with my customers cars to save money that way
and always bit me in the rear end, and I see more guys they'll buy the cheap
Chinese wheel bearings and then a year year and a half later, guess what they
start roaring again and they're worn out, and since a lot of modern cars now have
ABS sensors built into the hub assembly with the wheel bearing inside, I've seen
guys buy the Chinese once and they either don't have the right sensor or they
don't have any sensor at all, and as soon as they bolt it up and start driving
along, their abs light starts flashing at them, and that's because that cheap wheel
bearing isn't made right to fit the computer software of your car and it
doesn't read the speed right, so the computer thinks there's something wrong
with the ABS system and it turns the light on, if you're going through all the
trouble taking all the suspension apart to get that hub off, use a quality OEM
wheel bearing assembly, don't go cheap on that, now realize most manufacturers
don't even make their own wheel bearings, they buy them from all their companies
like to Europeans often use these F a g wheel bearings, wheel bearings are kind
of interesting because wheel bearings are universal size, there's not English
there's not metric, so I've had in the past where somebody brought me an
expensive BMW that when a wheel bearing went out on it, I actually bought a Ford
oem wheel bearing because it was the same exact size, it costs a tons less than
what they want at the BMW dealer of course, and it worked perfectly fine but
that was in the older days when we would take them apart and put new ones in
today they're all hub assemblies and the Ford hub assembly isn't gonna fit on a
BMW assembly even if the wheel bearings inside are the same size, the hub will be
different, now another tip to make your wheel bearings last a long time is, if
you are changing them, when you finally put that nut back on that holds a drive
shaft to it, make sure you use a torque wrench, because when you're tightening
this nut when you're putting it in, you have to have the perfect amount of
torque so the wheel bearing isn't either too loose or too tight
I see more guys put on wheel bearings, and then a few months later the new ones
start making noise because they're wearing out, because they didn't torque it
right, torque wrenches are easy to use, in this case the numbers are here and you
just turn the handle until you're at the right reading 50 foot-pounds, you go to
50 foot-pounds and stop, they have the little part here that when
it does get to the right torque, it makes a loud click, then you know it's at the
right setting of foot pounds, so it's torqued down just right, and there's a
zillion sources of information for the right torque for the right parts, you can
use alldata .com you can get a book, you can go lots of ways, but you want to make
sure it's right because, if it's torqued too tight it'll overstress the bearing, the
bearings squeezed in and guess what, it's gonna wear out faster, and conversely if
it's too loose, that's actually even worse, because it's too loose then the
stupid thing is bouncing all over the place, and it's gonna wear out even
faster when it's loose, cuz there's a lot more friction, anything that's bouncing
around and moving it's going to create heat and friction and that'll where the
bearings out faster, plus it'll make an awful lot of noise and drive you crazy
now I'll tell you one thing not to do if you want them to last longer, I've seen
guys where they can hear noise in the wheel bearings, and even though they're
sealed, they'll get a little hypodermic syringe and hook it up to a grease gun
and they'll pump grease back in, well that's not really a good thing to do and
that's for two reasons, first if the seals gone dirt got in there, the dirt is
still gonna stay in there and it's gonna still be friction, it's still gonna wear
the bearings out, and if they're making noises they're worn already anyway and
two, wheel bearing grease is a very specialized grease, each manufacturer
often uses a different type of grease than the other manufacturers, and even
the same manufacturer over years changes the type of grease they put in a wheel
bearing, and if you mix two different kinds of wheel bearing grease, I've seen
that wear them out even faster, because they're not compatible, you got to have
the correct grease and only that type inside a clean environment, so don't try
to just pump some in after the grease seal, not a smart idea, because on the modern
cars, when they're worn out if you're getting a hub assembly that has
new seals, all the parts are new they're pre-greased, the grease is all inside and
done correctly, and all you gotta do is bolt the old one off and bolt the new one
on and do it with the right torque settings,
so now you know all about wheel bearing hey your entire car is spinning around
on these things one on each wheel and even though they have no actual
maintenance in modern cars, now you know how to make them last as long as
possible, and since this is mechanic Monday I'm give it away a nice torque
wrench, to have a chance to win this torque wrench so your wheel bearings
will be tightened up correctly, just place a clean non-offensive comment on
youtube comments below, and a winner will be chosen randomly by computer to get a
nice torque wrench so they put things together the right
way, so if you never want to miss another one of my new car repair videos, remember
to ring that Bell!