Anyone know how or when to replace them?

 

when they make a lot of noise, they are wore out.
or jack up the car and shake the wheel left to right, top to bottom and at the position 2 and 8. if they have a relative shake(movement) then they are wore.

 

thats how you do it.

 

yeah as long as they aren't makin noise you are fine. Usually somewhere around 200k miles is when they tend to go. it isn't really to hard to replace them but you have to have a shop press the old ones out and the new ones in. You can hammer the old ones out but hammering the new ones will damage them so there is no point to hammer the old ones out when you will be pressing the new ones in. What you need to remove is the whole spindle assembly for them to press the bearing out of ie. remove the massive half shaft bolt, the upper and lower ball joint bolts, and steering bolt then it should just slide right out.

 

Thanks guys, I'm off to check them right now.

Got the hatch out of commission for a while, so might as well get this checked out.

I think I will opt for a hub assembly rather than going through the hassle of taking them out and putting in.

 

50 bucks and a few hours of labor and your good as new. Dont buy a whole new hub assembly.