magnusk9

So I recently bought a 99 boxster. It needs rear wheel bearing.

upon reading the DIY about it. it shows the bearings are pressed in and I figure a mechanic would be better off doing that job as I do not have the tool.
I like working on my own cars and am pretty handy... The local porsche guy was figuring $800 for the job


Well I happen to find a guy parting out a boxster and I can get both rear spindels for $300. Wouldn't this be a better solution? I have done hub and bearing assemblies before in my previous domestic cars...

Am I missing anything? Any special tools or areas where I could run into trouble?

Macster

$800 for one rear wheel bearing sounds kind of pricy. I had my 02's left (or was it the right rear?) bearing replaced at an indy shop (back when I used those) for $100 (roughly parts) and a couple of hours of labor.

(As an aside: The rear bearing is a bit less work to replace than the front.)

I'd elect to just replace the bad bearing.

Another aside: there was a question as to which bearing was bad and I wanted to replace both but the shop owner talked me out of it. We both agreed which bearing we thought was the bad one (the bad bearing was noisy but not noisy enough to walk up and say with 100% confidence which bearing was making the noise) and he replaced that bearing. That was at around 90K miles. 163K miles later the replacement bearing is just fine and the other 3 original bearings (now with over 253K miles on them) are just fine too. My point is there's no need to replace any more than the suspected bad bearing.

Anyhow, if you replace the hubs/spindles you do not know the condition of the bearings or the spindles/hubs and besides in replacing these there's the possibility you'll upset the alignment and have to have car aligned after. If just a bearing is replaced there's no need to worry about alignment. At least this was my experience, for the bearing replacement didn't include an alignment and tire wear after was just fine. (Yet another aside: It was after I had 4 new tires installed that the noisy bearing was then heard. Before the noisy tires were masking the bearing noise.)

My advice would be to replace the suspect bearing. Leave the salvaged spindles/hubs for someone who really needs them.

If you do not have the tools have it done. I would think twice about paying nearly double what I think it should cost, but I have to say that the price I paid was circa mid-2004, nearly 8 years ago. It could be $800 is the current rear wheel bearing R&R cost now.

Sincerely,

Macster.

harryrcb

To replace both bearings is 6.5 flat rate hours x whatever shop charges plus your bearings @ around $100 each.