bigdogadam

i've done a few of these on civics in the past and now my s has a issue. it seems like a pretty straight forward job but everywhere i read, people are replacing the hub as well. my question is, is the hub replacement necessary in the replacement of the wheel bearing? i've read in one case of just replacing the bearing and not the hub, that a few months down the line the bearing wore out prematurely. does anyone have any insight they can offer?

White Smoke

Can you even buy just the bearing for the S?

bigdogadam

yes, you can buy each wheel bearing individually. the rears are 30-40 bucks and the rear hub is around 140

White Smoke

People probably just do the whole thing because it's allot less work. lol Pulling the race off the hub can be a real pita.

eflove

I didn't get a new hub when I did mine. Like white smoke said you don't need it if your low on cash but it can save a little time. If you don't get a new hub you will have to cut,pry,and press off the old race. This can be a PITA if you have not done a few before. You will need a press if you get a new hub or not.

4doorH22

Or do what I do... take the hubs to a shop to have the races removed. I think they charged me 20 bucks for both - this is on my Accord but I assume the design/principle is similar.

bigdogadam

ok so i did this job last night. turns out the bearing was fine, it was actually the hub had worn so much that it pretty much fell out of the bearing, leaving the races intact on the bearing. it's strange, ive never even heard of this happening before. so ive been all day trying to find a hub locally. talk about a pita. every regular chain automotive store i go to looks at my like i'm speaking korean when i ask for just a hub. finally found one at a specialty shop about an hour away. going to have this and the new bearing pressed in the knuckle later today. anyone else heard of anything like this happening?

White Smoke

Post some pics!

bigdogadam

sorry for such a crappy pic but it appears as though this wasn't the first time this issue was addressed in this car. it looks as though the hub wore out before and someone took and awl or a punch and made a ton of little indents to give this hub more friction or something to help it hold on inside the bearing. the bearing itself really didn't even look bad, but i figured since i came this far that i might as well replace it too

White Smoke

WTF That's wack...

bigdogadam

yeah tell me about it. makes me worry about what else may be rigged together on my car from the previous owner

wilsel

How many miles are on your car? Just curious

midwesta

The rear hubs on the S2000 are GARBAGE.

I will no longer just replace wheel bearings because as you have read before, they just end up going bad again. Especially on AP1's.

What I do now is I find a wrecked AP2 and just buy the whole rear assembly and just bolt it on the car with the bad rear hub/wheel bearing. Saves a lot of time and actually costs about the same price.

Rear hubs can be found for about $100 and when compared to just buying a wheel bearing for $60 and spending hours swapping it out I would rather just spend the $100.



One of the worst cases I have seen was when the HONDA DEALERSHIP did a rear wheel bearing on a 2006 S2000 and the customer drove around for a few weeks and heard some noise coming from the hub again. Returned to the dealer and they found the nut was loose. So the dealership just gunned the nut down and tightened it as hard as they could. Couple days later the nut and the end of the axle broke off and the customer did not notice and was driving and the bearing got destroyed and the only thing holding the wheel to the car was the brake caliper and that turned BLUE from the heat!

I have heard of a few cases where the axle has snapped with the nut in it as well.

So after all these stories and I have personally swapped rear wheel bearings for customers here at the shop and they have come back with the car making the same noise a few weeks later or a month later.

Some have said there were recalls on some of these things but I do not know for sure.

I just stick to what works and that is getting AP2 or newer rear hubs from wrecked cars or someone parting out a car. I have done this on numerous cars and never a complaint.

bigdogadam

my car has a ton of miles on it at 150k so i was expecting these sorts of issues. i know that the other hub is right around the corner.