Replace the Rear Wheel Bearings on a Dodge Neon
If you are hearing noise and vibration coming from the rear of the car, chances are that you have a bad wheel bearings. The bad news is that the mechanic will charge you a fortune to change that. The good news is that if you can change the oil in your car, you can change the wheel bearings yourself!
Steps
- Get the things you'll need, listed below.
- Block the front wheels of the car with cement blocks, usually the diagonal wheel to which you're working on(just to be safe you can block both front wheels). Put the car in Parking brake.
- Loosen the lug nuts half a turn with the lug wrench. Raise the car with a jack (look in the Neon's owner's manual for a diagram of the proper jack point).
- Remove the lug nuts and release the Parking brake.
- Pull off the wheel and the brake drum. You will need to bang with Rubber mallet to take off this, as it might be very rusty, this will expose the bearing and hub assembly.
- Pry the dust cover from the center of the hub with a Flathead screwdriver. Be very careful in prying off this as you don't want to damage the dust cover.
- Use a socket wrench with a ( 30mm on 2005) 32 mm socket to remove the nut in the center of the hub, then slide off the hub.
- Slide the replacement hub and bearing assembly into place. Replace the nut and tighten to {{safesubst:#invoke:convert|convert}}-lbs of torque using a torque wrench.
- Slide the brake drum and wheel onto the lugs. Hand-tighten the lug nuts.
- Lower the jack and finish tightening the lug nuts with the lug wrench.
Tips
- Use piece of cloth and spray with WD-40 to wipe out the rust from the rotors of the brake.
- Use WD-40 to loosen the lug nuts and the hub assembly.
Things You'll Need
- Jack
- Lug wrench
- Flathead screwdriver
- Rubber mallet
- Socket wrench
- 32mm socket
- Torque wrench
- 2-4 Cement blocks
- New wheel bearing assembly
