bbearden

I have been experiencing a vibration in the rear end of my '03 E55 which I originally attributed to some wheels I recently purchased which were slightly bent. Upon fixing the wheels, I noticed the vibration did not go away and I've heard some metal on metal noises coming from the right rear wheel well. My suspicions were confirmed today that the wheel bearing was in fact the culprit and the local Indy shop is charging me $950 to replace both rear wheel bearings. The majority of the labor they indicated is attributed to the labor in disassembling the rear end to access/replace the bearings. They mentioned 10 hours of shop labor for this job. Has anyone else had this done before or had their bearings fail? Does this labor estimate seem reasonable?

lowprofile

In for updates. Are you sure the noise you are hearing is in fact from the bearings? Just for reference, I had an odd noise similar to metal on metal which ended up being the emergency brake pads dragging ever so slightly on the rotors.

nanayaw6

Having had one changed before I'll tell you this. First check to make sure it is really your bearing. Jack the car up and test. The new bearing has to be pressed into the race(if you can't get an entire hub and bearing assembly) . MB has a specific puller designed for pulling the bearing. Disassembly is labor intensive as you were told
Just saw your comment on the metal on metal noise. Are you sure it isn't brake-related such as backing plate, caliper, or even parking brake shoes or heck even alignment related? Our bearings are pretty tough and don't just fail.

AgSilver

I replaced my bearings at about 25K miles when I installed the LSD just because everything was apart. The original bearings showed virtually no wear whatsoever. Did the shop give you the old bearings back?

nanayaw6

I took them with me. I only had to change mine as a result of some idiot stripping my lug bolts into my rear wheel Hub.