Car

Back in October of last year I took our car to a dealership mechanic who moonlighted from his house.  He replaced the original spark plugs on our V6 car and gave me a list of things to keep an eye on.

One of those items was the front passenger wheel hub assembly.  The assembly houses a set of bearings that let your wheel spin around smoothly.  Over time those bearings will get beaten up and pot marked.  Eventually you’ll start to hear a little noise from them while driving, then a lot of noise as the problem gets worse.

On our way back from Blackhawk Springs Forest Preserve, cruising down the interstate at 70 (ish) mph, the passenger front wheel well sounded louder than it should.  I figured it was time to change out that part.

I did a little price shopping and found out the following:

1. I had a mechanic replace this part on a different car to the tune of $270.  They just did one wheel.
2. RockAuto.com, my usual favorite, was not the cheapest for an OEM quality part (approximately $100).
   1. RockAuto had some parts listed at a mere $30.  Yikes!
3. Amazon had the cheapest OEM quality part with free shipping.

I went ahead and ordered two hubs so I could replace the front driver and passenger sides at the same time.  I like to replace parts in pairs.  If one side of a symmetrical system is causing problems, it stands to reason that the other side is deteriorating as well.

The total cost was $206.

Jacking up the front end of the car and removing the wheel, axle nut, and disk brakes revealed the hub assembly.

The big center bolt is the drive axle.  There is a black half moon shaped piece and that is the brake dust cover.  The light blue electrical connector in the top left corner is the ABS sensor harness.  The wheel hub assembly is the orange rusty looking part with the 5 bolts sticking out of it.

I borrowed a couple of specialty tools from the auto parts store.  One was a 36 mm socket to take off the big axle nut.  The other was this drive axle hub puller doodad.

It was suppose to pop the wheel assembly hub out from the drive axle by pressing the drive axle in.  In 10 year old car reality however, it didn’t cut the mustard.

After a couple of hours pounding away at the assembly with a 2 lb hammer, and later on with a big cold chisel (meant for masonry), I eventually separated the two rusty parts.

Above is a picture of the drive axle without the hub assembly.  The little spindle grooves fit into grooves on the assembly.  That is what turns your wheel.

After wire brushing off a lot of the rust and gunk on the car, the new shiny wheel assembly was ready to go in.  I lathered up the new assembly with anti-seize compound.  In theory, that should prevent the parts from rusting together again and some future car owner will have a much easier time replacing this part.  I also applied dielectric grease to the electrical ABS harness.  All that does is help to keep out moisture because water and electricity should never mix.

Installation is pretty much the reverse.  My Haynes manual listed disassembly as 6 steps.  Youtube videos abound to help fill in the details.

The first side took 3.5 hours.  The other side took 1.5 hours once I knew the secret of cold chiseling.  Mechanics bill would have been $540 ($270 x 2).  My parts cost was $206, so my labor cost was $334 or $66.80/hr.  That seems more than worth it to me!

I have been keeping a spreadsheet repair log for this car since late 2014.  To date, we have spent $1289 in maintenance on our 2006 Pontiac G6.  It helps that we are a below average mileage family.

Back in March I took our car into the mechanic to have a flat tire patched.  He noticed that the passenger side outer tie rod was nearing end of life and recommended that I replace it.  Of course, he was happy to do the work for me for a steep up-charge on parts and $100/hr labor.  I politely declined and went home to order the parts.

I have replaced tie rods before on a different car, see here for that adventure.  This time around, I wasn’t going to mess with the inner tie rods.  I figured it was about an hour job.  Sadly, I was woefully incorrect.

After getting the wheel off, I could see that the passenger side outer tie rod was in poor shape.  The protective rubber boot had torn on the other side and most of the grease had leaked out.  The castle nut holding the tie rod to the wheel assembly just spun when I tried to loosen it.  It was spinning because it is attached to a ball joint.  Normally, mechanics will use a tool called a pickle fork to apply pressure to the joint so it won’t spin.  I don’t have that tool, so I ended up just cutting through the metal.

The next challenge was loosening up the lock nut between the inner and outer tie rods.  This lock nut is used as an adjustment when your car gets aligned.  After pouring a river of penetrating oil on it and adding as much muscle as I could muster, I eventually conceded that only fire would get the job done.

It took about 3 minutes of blasting it with the propane torch before I was able to wrench the nut free from its rusty prison.  With that done, the outer tie rod threaded off easy peasy.

I used the same procedure on the driver’s side.  The mechanic said only the passenger needed replacing, but seeing as you have to get an alignment after this job, it makes sense to get them both done at the same time.  While the driver’s side was in better shape, I could see some obvious signs of rubber fatigue in the boot.  It was also on the way out.

The easy part is putting everything back together.

I bought both tie rod ends off Rock Auto for $50 with shipping and tax.  Installation took about 4 hours, 3 for the passenger side, 45 minutes for the driver side, plus cleanup.  The mechanic wanted $50 for just the passenger side and another $80 in labor.  If I break down my cost to better match apples to apples, then mine would have been $25 in parts (one side) + 2 hours in labor (average per side).  That would make my hourly rate $52.50/hr.  Not too shabby.

Even with stubborn rusted on parts, it still was worth DIY’ing this project.