Ford galaxy - front wheel bearing

R-m-h

R-m-h

R-m-h

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18 Jul 2017
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4
Hi all,

Hope you might be able to help. I'm on holiday in Austria and noticed a noise coming from the car. It increases with speed and is still there when free-wheeling. I had one mechanic from a local garage sit in the car for 5 minutes and he suspected it to be the cv joint and said they couldn't fix it and to take it to the nearest ford garage.

Ford have had a look at the car today and emailed to say it's a broken wheel bearing on drivers side and quoted 550 euros (!) To fix it.the car is a 2005 1.9 diesel ford galaxy - surely they are ripping me off?

In case it has simply been lost in translation, am I right in thinking the quote would still be very high for a cv joint replacement?

Any advice greatly appreciated!
 
MooMoo444 said:
They're taking you for a ride. It should be half that, if that.
Click to expand...

Yes and no.

Replacing the bearing should be straightforward. However, if the Garage is working on the basis of having to remove the strut and using a workshop press in order to do the job they may be allowing for the possibility that this might prove very very difficult.

The Galaxy/Sharan/Alhambra has a particularly nasty design fault which results in water pooling in the top of the suspension strut top mounting corroding the nuts and making them almost impossible to remove without considerable ballache and unexpected/unplanned replacement components...

On a 13 year old car I would expect the whole top assembly to be a shapeless blob of rust by now... :/

However, all is not lost,

A set of tools like this

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/23Pc-Fron...901217&hash=item5b37e970ad:g:UtwAAOSw~bFWMyBT

Might allow the bearing to be removed/replaced without having to remove the strut from the car Funnily enough, I used just such a set of tools to replace the rear bearings on a Sharan this afternoon and it is pretty much a Piece of Cake.

Of course with a front bearing the drive shaft would need to be removed first, but other than that it should be straightforward.

Oh, and PS

Autodata suggests 1.3 hours for the job. In practice Autodata can be hopelessly optimistic for jobs like this.

However 2.5 Hours should be fine unless something unexpected occurs.

The bearing kit should be around £50 (IE Not £20, Not £100)

You may also end up needing a new ABS sensor. not because it is faulty but because it might need to be removed in order to do the job and on old cars this is frequently not possible without destroying them.

Prices for this are less predictable, depending on make £50-£150 as a rough guess.
 
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They've just quoted me a lump sum 550 euro via email. Unfortunately I didn't catch them before they closed for the day but I'll ask for an itemised quote in the morning.
 
chaparral said:
Years ago I use to always replace my wheel bearings in pairs...

But don't look like they do both sides so much these days
Click to expand...

Years ago, wheel bearings cost a tenner and were **** easy to do.

Not so much nowadays :/

Current wheel bearings are awkward enough.

Just do a web search for Gen 2 and Gen 3 wheels bearing assemblies. The tools can run into thousands if you want a full spread to be able to deal with all comers. As an indy, they are only going to be worth getting if I know I am going to use them a couple of times a month. And even then, the job has to be charged for.# And I am not, so I wont....! :/

It is good practice to replace broken springs in pairs too (And, of course by the tinme a car is 10 years old, a pair of new shocks and strut bearings are good practice too)

But it is a very hard sell :/

#

You have bought a tool that allows you to do the job in 20 minutes.

The tool cost £500.

The "parts" mark up is £40

How much do you charge to do the Job? to make doing it worthwhile?
 
This sounds like when my MR2 broke down on the autoroute and my breakdown cover company towed it to a local garage. I paid €90 for a diagnosis: alternator failure, 1200€ please sir. The problem was in fact a corroded battery connector.

Unfortunately, a lot of garages see a UK reg car, know you're on holiday and don't have much choice, and just charge the maximum they think they'll get away with. This sounds very much like one of those occasions but unless you can find an honest local garage who can get the parts quickly there's probably not much you can do. If you can source the part yourself and get it delivered to where you're staying, there'll almost certainly be a local mobile mechanic who will come and fit it for a comparatively low price - whether it's worth your time and effort when you're on holiday is another matter.
 
Thanks everyone for your comments. I was convinced that there had to be a complication hence the high price. However, the ford garage just wanted to replace the bearing for 550 euro. Parts alone were quoted at 310 euro. I asked if they could use third party parts but they insisted that they only work with genuine ford parts. I don't think it was a case of them just trying to make a quick buck either, when I asked if I had to pay for the diagnostics they had a look at the timesheets etching and let me leave without paying anything.

I'm relatively fortunate in that I still have 2 weeks holiday left and my plans are quite vague/ flexible. I've got a local garage on board who has promised to do the work for 200euro max, the only catch is he can't do it until Monday!

Thanks again for all your advice
 
I should also say that my breakdown cover have offered to tow it to a different garage (of my choosing or one from their approved (sic) list) to get a second opinion. They've been great to be fair and put me up in a nice 4* hotel whilst we were waiting for ford to take a look at the car. The only drawback is that some of their phone operators don't have the best English and phone line quality has been questionable at times!
 
When did the noise start? If it's only been days there's no rush to get it fixed. I've driven around for a few months with mine knocking. I'm sure you'd be fine for a week or 2

Is it a hire car? If it is I wouldn't be paying for it
 
Looks like the part is £70 + VAT on Ford Parts UK so i'd say they are trying to rip you off, we did the job on my same era ST220 in 2 hours and you have to drop and re-align the subframe on a MK3 Mondeo which I think doesn't need doing on a Galaxy.
 
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