Touareg Rear Wheel Bearing R & R
The wheel bearing allows the rotation of the wheel as the driveshaft applies force. Failed wheel bearings are most often discovered because of noise. The classic bearing failure has a "rrrrr rrrrr rrrrr" noise when cornering in one direction but not the other. The sound can also be a grinding sound.
The Touareg has sealed wheel bearings that are designed to last the life of the vehicle, but they do fail. Changing them requires a press to remove and reinstall the bearing, and a bearing puller to remove the outer bearing race from the hub. Lastly, a rear wheel alignment will be needed once this job is complete.
First a look at the whole assembly. This si the left rear wheel. The bearing is in #5 in blue:
Here the wheel is off the hub and the brake caliper has been removed.
Next, unplug the ABS speed sensor and remove the brake rotor.
The rotor has removed and you can now see the parking brake shoes and the adjuster.
Another view and the actuator where the parking brake cable attaches to on the right. The cable that actuates the park brake must be disconnected.
To disconnect the brake cable, a circlip must be removed and slid back.
Now the metal sleeve can be slid back.
And now the shaft can be slid back also.
Once the sleeve is slid back, the park brake cable end can be detached from the actuator.
All the bolts securing the bearing housing/hub assembly to the control arms must be removed. Finally, a self locking nut and a circlip inside the bearing housing must be removed to allow the assembly to be removed from the drive axle.
Here is the assembly which includes the bearing carrier housing and the hub. The two pieces must be pressed apart and then the inner bearing race must be removed from the hub. Here you can see the side of the assembly facing the wheel (Outer)
Next, a press is needed to press the hub from the bearing housing. This separates the outer bearing race from the housing. Here you can see the backside of the bearing housing (the side towards the final drive). We will press the bearing out of the bearing housing.
The inner bearing race is left on the hub. A bearing puller is used to pull the inner race from the hub.
Here is the new wheel bearing. Note that there are two different sides to it
Make sure that rubberized sensor ring for ABS points in towards rear final drive. You can see that here in the old bearing, it's the outer surface with the lines.
This is the other side of the new bearing:
To install the bearing it must first be pressed into the bearing housing and the hub is then pressed into the bearing. The rest is just the reverse of the disassembly.
Because the bearing carrier is detached from all the control arms, a rear wheel alignment must be done.