I better ask for your opinions here. I don't want to push the envelope too far.

I just checked, one of my rear bearing needs replacement. It threw an ABS Track control amber light yesterday 10 miles into a trip. Reset, no lights rest of journey. Since I saw this happen once before I knew to check the bearing. FWIW that previous time threw several of these warnings before I changed the bearing. All was good.

What's got me concerned is the amount of play at 12 o'clock/ 6 o'clock with no weight on the wheel. It's at least 1/8 inch.

There is no noise. I'd sure like to do this job on Saturday, keep this weeks appointments driving 50 or 60 miles.

Of course no one can ever reliability predict anything like this but let's just say it's been a tough week. Everything else went wrong. . .

At what point should one say: don't drive the car until it is fixed for a worn rear wheel bearing?

Thanks, I appreciate it.
John

 

Wow, this one landed flat. Think its my 1st question that no one could answer ;-).

Well no harm done. Like Frankc, who mentioned it the other day, it bugs me when folks don't get around to giving us feedback on how it went.

In that spirit, let me bring you up to speed. I replaced the bearing this weekend. Figured, "this is the 3rd time I'm doing it. Wonder if I can finish it in a couple of hours." Yes you can laugh now, wasn't even close! Right now I'm thinking that this is the kind of job that you could cut the time in half if you do it again the next day. But 2 or 3 yrs later. . .

Got the hub all reassembled, looked at that ABS ring and wondered, once again, how the hell is that going to rotate. But, I'd seen that before, so just put her all back together, cleaned up, and started her up for a test drive.

Wow, wow, wow. What a difference, guess the slow, incremental deterioration got past me. This was well worth it.

BTW, I did the job without removing the ebrake this time. Besides dodging the flapping ebrake cable as I worked, it posed no problems.

Regarding the safety issue question above, the old bearing lost a few rollers causing the runnout at 12 o'clock 6 o'clock when testing. Would it have fallen off? I think it was a long way from that. OTOH the stability made me uncomfortable. It was like driving on one of those old roads that direct your car to follow the depression made by decades of other cars driving the route.

John

 

John,

Thanks for the feedback and the answer to your own question.

I haven’t got the play you described but have the spare front wheel bearings, with Cir clips in a box somewhere.... Waiting until I get the symptoms you described.... hopefully not in the near future. 83,000 miles in so far

 

Well done....

Now at 120,400 miles, I have not had any wheel bearing issues on my wife's 2006 XK8. Perhaps Jaguar stepped up to a better-quality wheel bearing component by the end of the model run. Time will tell....

 

OK Jon, I knocked on wood for both of us.
Don't do that and give the cars any ideas. LOL
I did get the extra ball joint kit, so we are ready for that if and when.