Last week, I began noticing a weird 'wobbly' feeling at the rear of the car at full throttle, hard acceleration in third and fourth gear at about 120-130kmh. The sensation didn't go away, and in fact got worse, and I started noticing it at lower speeds too. I checked tire pressures, had a look at all the suspension mounting points at the rear, and nothing. I did a cursory push and and wiggle on the rear tires to check for play, but they seemed okay. A mechanic buddy had a ride in the car Saturday when we were out taking photos and noticed the feeling too. During one of the stops, I again checked the left rear and found substantial play. A bit more checking with the car jacked up last night and my friends diagnosis was wheel bearing - all the ball joints were good.

Yesterday, my friend and I removed both rear uprights to R&R both rear wheel bearings. Still need to press them out to see what the contact surfaces look like, but on the left rear, as we were taking the axle nut off, part of the stub axle came off the driveshaft with it! Doh! So the bad wheel bearing caused a lot of movement in the wheel, which must have fatigued the axle enough such that when we got the impact on it to remove the nut, it just gave. Oh well. Gonna find out how much this stuff costs later today...

 

crap...

 

Nasty!! Was there some scheduled maintenance you could have done to prevent this or does it just happen after a certain amount of time?

 

sorry to hear that man...

 

Caused by potholes perhaps. Are the roads really that bad in Edmonton?

 

Roads here are bad bad bad!! Seriously, I'm weaving all the time just to avoid potholes. Article in the Journal yesterday stated that something like 17% of all roads and highways in Alberta are graded 'poor', and in a couple years, that'll rise to 21%.

Anyway...thanks for everyone commiseratin'. I figure the wheel bearing was just going, and then I killed the axle by driving on it for a week or so - just not knowing the diagnosis in the first place. Whatever.

My mechanic friend pressed the near bearings in for me today. NSKs, purchased aftermarket, but they are OE spec. New hub assembly hopefully in tomorrow, along with new axle nuts and a new outer CV joint. I just finished putting in the fully repaired right side, just need an axle nut on that side. Once the parts come in tomorrow, I can do the left side.

Total costs:

2x wheel bearings - $75 each, $150 total - aftermarket (OE is $101 each)
1x hub assembly - $175, from dealer (aftermarket was about $10 more!)
2x axle nuts - $4.50 each, $9 total (OE is $11.50 each or so)
1x outer CV kit, including boot, clamps, retaining clip, stub axle/CV joint - $257 (not available aftermarket)

Axle is also not available aftermarket.

Compared to $716 for a single complete axle from the dealer...ouch, pricey.

There's a special tool for removing the outer CV joint from the axle, one attaches a slide hammer to it, but I had neither. As the joint is toast, I just used a hammer and pounded it out.

Sooooo.....all this means the sub and the suspension purchases have to put off for a while!

Oh...and I dunno what I could have done preventatively other than just replacing the wheel bearing, but it's quite a pain in the ass to do that job. If one ever has to have it done at a shop, I could see it getting quite pricey because of all the labour involved, let alone the parts.

 

There's a higher torque spec for the axle nut than was originally listed in the service manual. If people have the axle nuts retorqued, it may well help extend their lives...

 

Do you know the higher spec off hand? I'm hoping to put the thing back together tonight. I think the manual says 181 ft lbs, but I've heard 220 ft lbs?

 

I just had my axle nuts tightened when I was down in Ohio.

Not hard to do, but a worthwhile bit of preventative maintence in my opinion. Mine were the old tq spec and were clicking on change of direction (reverse to 1st, vice versa).

 

I found confirmation of the new torque spec: