Wheel bearings
 

1997 Boxster w/ 94k miles.

Getting ready to order the suspension kit to replace all the control arms and bushings and stuff. Should I change my wheel bearings too? The books make it look like a real pain and since the easy stuff seems to end up being a real pain for me, I'm nervous about what this will end up being.

If you are totally disassembling your suspension, you can take the spindle assembly to a machine shop and have the bearings replaced cheaply. Biggest cost on doing the bearings on one these cars is the special tooling to do it without removing the suspension from the car; as you will have it apart already, I would do it to save in the long term.

yes ... do it .... i did it and it was well worth it.

i agree that you should get a machine shop to do it with a press. It doesnt do the wheel bearing any good by hammering it in. its not built for lateral impacts.

remember to get a geometry done too .. .after you install the parts.

my box (2001 base) .. , i realized that my entire geo was out of whack from the old suspension. the rear toe in ... was like nearly 4 degrees!!!

As long as you have everything apart and are spending the money on the suspension, I would also recommend that you go ahead and have a shop replace the wheel bearings. At 94K miles, they are getting towards the end of their life and this way you won't have to worry about them until you pass 200,000 miles.

Did them myself. Do cv and boots and all 4 bearings. Big worth it.

But I love my hammer!:)

"Cant Touch This" !

Wow! I brought my car to the shop to have the suspension work done. I bought all the parts on my own. They quoted me $1200 labor for all the control arms, struts, sway bar bushings, drop links, all that stuff. Seemed fair given the amount of laziness I have been experiencing lately.

I forgot to mention the wheel bearings to them. When I brought that up, they told me that would cost an additional $1300. I was on the phone with the girl behind the counter, so I felt like explaining to her how insane that was when they will have the carriers already off the vehicle, would not have done anybody any justice.

Obviously, I told them hell no, but now I'll have that worry in the back of my head and fixing all this stuff was supposed to alleviate that.

Just venting.

CoBeer,

Couple questions: Where did you buy your kit and what all did you buy? I'm looking into suspension refresh and I'm kind of clue less as to what all to replace. I'm thinking I'm going to do it myself, but not sure yet. Wheel Bearings I know I'll need in about 11k miles too.

Where did you take the car to? I've got a small indy I take mine to but not sure if he does suspension. Thanks.

I was too scared / lazy / didn't feel like buying more tools to do it myself. That was the original plan, but after only driving it about 2-3 weeks this summer due to other repairs, I'm kinda done with fixing stuff this year.

I can't vouch for the wrench yet as they just started working on it today. It's Wolski's in Highland. Seems like a good shop, but like I said, I'll know more in a week.

I pretty much bought the suspension package that Pelican advertises. (Although I didn't purchase it from Pelican as they were out of a couple items with no idea on when they would have them in stock). In addition I bought the wheel bearings, which I don't know what I'm going to do with now and I bought new struts (wow are those expensive). It ran me just under $3k for everything.

Replacing everything might have been overkill, but as I thought about replacing one thing on one side, I figured I should replace the other side too and then while I'm in there I might as well replace this and that and pretty soon it turned into everything.

This is the link to Pelican's suspension kit.
OK. The stupid link didn't work, but it's easy to find. Just type suspension kit in Pelican's search box.

I am super pumped to drive this car with all new suspension. It had made the stupid banging noise every time I hit the bump by my house since I owned it and I can't wait to see how this car really is supposed to drive.

I did all this stuff last year including the wheel bearings. I generally dont replace things unless they need it or the incremental labor is near zero. for the wheel bearings i tested them by simply grabbing the top and bottom of the wheel while it was in the air and rocked it back and forth. i would say replace them if you feel any play at all. My rears were in bad shape, the fronts were fine. i do have a bearing press and a lathe to make up some pulling pushing inserts but for most folks i would say it makes more sense to have it done. the car has 170k on it and i think the bearings were original from inspecting them