I'm about to replace my front wheel bearing on my 2000 A6.
I got a new bearing kit from ECS and a bearing press from autozone. I do have the Bentley manual and tons of questions that come with it. does anyone have done the job before and might be able to give some pointers here?

- do i have to take out the entire wheel bearing housing to do the job, or can i leave it in place?
-when i changed my half-axle, i was able to pull it out of the wheel hub by just taking out the lower contorl arms and NOT the upper arms, as they seemed to be a real pain. would removing the lower ones be enough?

- when reading the bentley manual they are talking about using a "separator". i attached some pics to show that thing. do i need it? and what does it do? will i be enough with the bearing press from autozone?

any help is greatly appreciated as i rather have all the suprises uncovered before starting the job

oh also,
i'll have to replace the rear bearing on my wifes 96 a4 q.. is that going to be any different?

thanks guys...

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Front bearing replacement on A4

Rear bearing replacement on A4

 

The writeup is pretty good. The seperater is used to remove the hum in the writup. You could also use a slidehammer and the lug bolts to remove the hub.