My son has a 97 A4. It has front weel drive and the 2.8 liter engine. He drove it for 3 to 4 weeks while the rear end was making a noise. He brought it by and when he removed the rear rotor we found that the inner wheel bearing has designigrated. The back of the rotor has worn against the caliper holder and backing plateso the rotorneeds to be replaced as well.

I have not previously worked on an Audi, and I don't know much about them, nor have I replaced a rear rotor. I have found a few procedures online about replacing the rear bearings, rotor, and pads but they seem incomplete. For example, none of them that I have found mention anything about tha ABS ring that is on the rotor we removed from the car. I am concerned about other, not so obvious problems I may encounter.

Looking at the info I have found so far, the job doesn't look to bad but I have a couple of questions. The first concerns the ABS Ring. The one that came off of the car is worn and/or damaged. From reading about the kinds of problems an ABS Ring can cause I have decided to use a new one. None of the replacement rotors that I have seen pictures of have the ABS Ring. Is it a seperate part I need to purchase and press onto the rotor? Or should I be looking for a different rotor that already has an ABS ring?

My second question is about the inner bearing. The spindle seems has a small step in it near the backing plate. I believe it is the inner bearing race. Is it pressed on? I am concerned about pulling it off as it has a low step the there isn't a lot of material to get a grip on.

Thanks for any information anyone can provide.

 

Well, it is done. My son and I replaced the rear bearing, splash guard, rotor, and brake pads on his A4. Most of you may already know how to do this but I thought I'd post the answers to the questions that I had in case another new person had the same questions.

My son has a 97 A4,2.8 V6 engine with front wheel drive. He drove the car about 3 to 4 weeks after hearing a noise from the rear of the car. When we disassembled the wheel we found that the bearing had failed. The rollers were completly gone. I had a question about the rotor/huband ABS ring as we were looking at doing the repair.

Theoriginal rotor/hub hadanABS ring that was on the back. None of the online procedures that I had found even mentioned the ABS ring. I didn't know if it was a seperate piece or if it was part of the rotor/hub. Well, it is a seperate piece. I suppose if you werevery carefull you might be able to pull the original one off and reuse it. It looks very fragile however, and I think the odds of sucessfully removing it in usable condidtion are very remote. For the price, and since ours was slightly damaged, we decided to go with a new part. It is easily installed by heating it at 400 degrees F for 30 minutes. You may alsoneed to cool the hub as well, but the ABS ring should easily slide onto the hub.

 

Wow fast work! In the future for OEM replacement parts check out www.getcoolparts.com
I know its a very generic sounding company name, but they really are unbeatable for oem parts/prices. Free shipping for over $75 and sometimes over $50. There is an online coupon you can use "audi06" (i think) for an additional 5% off. I used a LARGE socket bit to press/hammer in my races into the rearrotorsfor the rear bearings etc. My ABS sensor ring was all rusted and nasty looking but it was reuseable and fitment was no problem with the new rotors. How much did you pay and were did you get your parts?

 

By the way.. Cant tell you how many fathers get on here for help with their sons/daughters Audi. Nice to see parents who dont spoil their children by payingout the nose for Audi maintnence costs and can actually DIY and teach your kid a thing er 2.

 

Thanks for the tip. I'll check the getcoolparts website.

We bought most of the parts at the dealer. The main reason is that the dealer parts were not a lot more expensive than most of the auto part stores we checked and and they could tell me exactly what I needed to finish the job. The auto part stores couldn't tell me if the ABS ring was part of the hub or a seperate part. The dealer was the only source of the splash guard that I could find.

The dealer price on the ABS ring was about $32, the splash guard about $44, and the rotor about $70. I could have bought a rotor for about half at a parts store but I also could have paid more than $80 for one there as well. Also I get a little concerned about the quality of an item when the price starts to look too good, if you know what I mean.