F/R Wheel Bearings
 

Anyone know if the front and rear wheel bearings are the same on 97 boxsters?

I ordered and just received all four from Vertex and they're identical (size, part number, etc.) yet they charged me $10 more for the rears. :confused:

I was either ripped off or they sent me two bearings that won't work.

Check the PET on Sunset Imports website or call them.

The PET shows:

Fr - # 999.053.043.03
Rr - # 999.053.041.03

So different PN#s at least. That doesn't necessarily mean it isn't the same part.

I'd definitely do some more research before installing them to be sure.

Just thought I'd come back to the thread I started to bring closure to the question. Somoene's bound to need this information in the future and it will be here for them.

My mechanic just told me that the front and rear wheel bearings on the MY97 are the same even though the part numbers may be different.

So, if you find that some sellers are charging more for the rears than the fronts, just buy four for the lower price. ;)

If you have another MY, do check though as it seems to be different in younger cars.

Randall, you have 106k miles on your boxster. Is this the first time you have changed your bearings? I was just wondering if there was some magic mileage that they should be changed at.

I am the 3rd or 4th owner of the car, so I am not sure if this will be the first set of bearings the car has seen or not. However, the brake disks were factory all the way around when I swapped them out a couple of months ago, and I noticed the calipers had never been off the car. This leads me to believe the bearings had never been replaced.

I have no idea what the magic mileage is for wheel bearings. Some guys on this board have replaced them at 40k due to noise. Others swap them trying to rid themselves of steering wheel and/or body shake.

I am doing them for both of these reasons plus I'll save on labor doing it with the other work I'm having done on the car (I'm gutting and replacing the suspension on the car with adjustable toe arms, new control arms, trailing arms, and coilovers).

I would think that any boxster with 100k on it or more is ready for wheel bearing replacement as well as tracking arms, control arms, and struts. On domestic cars, these suspension parts sometimes last for 20+ years, but not on our cars.

Keeping an old Boxster in top driving condition is not cheap. :ah:

The way I remember it, the S has larger rear wheel bearings.

Randall
i want to do my front bearings, but i was told that they are pressed in. How do you plan on get the old ones out and the new ones in without messing things up?
James

You need to take the wheel carriers into a shop and they'll press the old ones out and the new ones in, usually for about $10@. NAPA has machine shops as well as many others, call around to bearing/suspension shops in your area, they can do it.