04 1.9D Rear Wheel Bearings - electrocoolman
Anyone else had rear wheel bearings changed?

I've had a droning noise increasing with speed and gradually getting worse. Whilst the car was in for a cambelt change as 4+ years old but only 38K miles, asked garage to investigate noise....they reported both rear wheel bearings require changing....quoted 500 notes.

Talking with parts dept. of my local VW garage, they seemed to imply that this is a fairly frequently used part (rear hub assy), with units even being replaced under warranty.
Same part used on Audi A3.

I would not expect to be replacing rear wheel bearings this early on in cars life!

Is this a design problem? Bearing quality issue or possibly lack of lubrication....but meant to be sealed for life. Possibly a poor batch but seems to be a developing reliability problem?
04 1.9D Rear Wheel Bearings - 659FBE
Premature wheel bearing failure is often caused by the use of a hammer to remove rusted on brake disks. As the dealers increasingly see brake disk renewal as an easy source of revenue, the incidence of hub bearing failures is likely to rise.

659.
04 1.9D Rear Wheel Bearings - JohnM{P}
My 05 MkV 1.9 has done 120k now, no problem (hastily touching wood) with wheel bearings. On the Golf mkIV's I had, the rear tyres wore unevenly until they resembled trials tyres. The drone that VW technician and I both thought was a bearing (but whether transmission or wheel wasn't clear) disappeared as soon as I changed the tyres. Just a thought...
04 1.9D Rear Wheel Bearings - Old Navy
I have had SEAT And VW rear wheel bearings replaced under warranty and have had them fail (become noisy) on several occaisions over the years I have owned VW related cars. My "MOT man" tells me that they are a known weak point.

Edited by Old Navy on 08/04/2009 at 18:16