Hey guys
So im thinking about replacing my front control arms along with wheel bearings.
Now i heard from many guys that replacing control arms is not hard at all just can be pain in the rear getting to the bolts and all. I recently notices my wheel bearings squeaking and making grinding noise so i need to replace them too while I will have my wheels off. Does anyone know how hard is it to do it your self or if not how much is it to have someone do it for you? Basically i have a friend who works on cars a lot and has all the tools he needs but I never seen how our A4 wheel bearings look like or how they are sitting in the spindle. If anyone changed them before please let me know as soon as you can, I'm trying to start this project this weekend while i have few days off work.
Thanks in advance.

 

You have to get the wheel carrier out to replace the wheel bearings, thus you have to take the CA's off. There might be ways of replacing the bearing without having to do that but none that im aware of. The squeeks in the front are probably CA's not the bearing, the bearing is the grinding. Just search control arms and you can see how hard it can be to get the pinch bolt off, but youll get it with the right tools eventually.

 

http://www.audiworld.com/tech/wheel47.shtml
http://www.audiworld.com/tech/wheel43.shtml

 

onepoint8tee i thank you so much for finding the instructions. Job looks easy just time consuming. I will post back with the results of the project or maybe even pictures.
Thanks a lot guys

 

If you indeed want to do the wheel bearings, you should remove and just take your wheel bearing housing to a shop and have them press out the old one, and the hub, and press in the new one. The show stopper on this job is the pinch bolt up top and the two control arms down below. It can be nearly impossible to break them loose if you don't have a shed full of tools and an understanding of how hard you can use a BFH before breaking any good stuff.

You might want to leave the bearings alone until you know they are bad, and you will know.

Good luck.

 

dude i just changed the wheel bearings on my 96 a4 front wheel drive, its not hard at all just take the control arms off if its hard stick a skinny metal bar or something under the control arms where the nuts go on and hit it up and it comes right out, the wheel bearing is a little hard it u dont have a press, but here is the thing when u are looking at it still on the car it comes off twords u, some pple dont know that (like the dumb asses that almost crushed my spindle pressing it the wrong way) but its easy, when putting it back in look closely at it because there is a sertain way, the bigger side of the inside of the bearing goes in first if not the axel will not go in, if u got questions let me know... my car is working great