Just had a quote from my local Jag dealer for the replacement of the front wheel bearing as there was slight play picked up on the health check last service. £424.80 fitted Seems a little steep to me, what do you all think?
Jeff.

 

I have no idea how much that is because I'm a silly American and I don't often have to do money conversions.

 

Exchange rate quote on Yahoo a few minutes ago was 0.6158 GBP to one USD.
Dividing 0.6158 into 424.80 GBP yields an answer of 689.83 USD! That's a lot of quid / smackers in anybody's currency!

 

Is it making any noise?

 

A quick google search shows that the bearing itself ranges in price from $20 to $60, which means a genuine Jag bearing is probably $150 or so. That leaves about $500 in labor. I just looked at the process in the JTIS and it doesn't look that complicated. The JTIS doesn't say how long it should take, but it looks to me like it could easily be done in under three hours by someone with the proper tools. Heck, I think I could do it in under three hours

 

Hi Guys,

Thanks for the relies so far. They told me it was about three hours labour so I think it's too dear. I'll buy seperately I think and get my local workshop to do it.
And no, it isn't making any noise yet.

Jeff.

 

A few thoughts on replacing the front wheel bearings. On first blush this appears to be a rather easy task. However, my research on this topic reveals that removing the rotor nut to get to the bearing can be a real nightmare. In most cases a very sturdy vise and a rather long (4-6 feet) bar is required to get sufficient leverage to free the rotor nut. This may require a special tool and great care is necessary or the nut will be damaged. The bearing itself can be found for $50-$100 from several web sources. I suggest you solicit the advice of a Jag Tech who has been through this procedure.

 

I have done wheel bearings in other vehicles, but not this one. They aren't as straight forward as they used to be.

There is an issue with the ABS sensor that a special tool is used to unscrew it. My mechanic was able to use a 4X4 truck tool which has 2 nipples to remove a ring those vehicles holding the hub on. With some tinkering it was able to be used to remove the ABS sensor or ring or something like that.

I know he wasn't thrilled about doing it because, as wheel bearing jobs go, this one was of course tougher than most vehicles.

I think the problem was in the early models the hub was too small (or is it the spindle, I can't remember what the part the bearing rides in is called) and therefore too small of a bearing was used and they wore out prematurely. I know some before have put the beefed up one's on when the bearings needed replacement.

Hope that helps. Almost 500 quid seems high, but its not a quickie job either.

 

For example, when the hub/bearing unit is reassembled it is to be tightened to 220Nm; no small task. In general, you will have to remove the brake calliiper, speed sensor (easy to break and expensive), bottom ball joint, ABS rotor hub, press out the bearing (also quite difficult), press in new bearing and then put it all back together.