Audi A4 Cabriolet 1.8T

PART THREE: Our A4 had an annoying hum from the front-end that sounded like a wheel bearing – plus we needed to replace the worn-out front discs and the rear pads. Andrew Everett rolls up his sleeves…

Part three: Renewing a front wheel bearing and braking system.

Ihave to say, I really wasn’t looking forward to tackling the wheel bearing on our A4. I had noticed the tell-tale ‘wah wah wah wah’ noises from the front-end when I collected it from BCA and I’d hoped it wasn’t the gearbox or differential. I recalled a 1992 Audi 80 I bought decades ago that had a fainter version of the same noise – a noisy diff bearing due to a slight oil leak that hadn’t been addressed.

However, I put my mind at rest (partly) when I investigated further. I jacked up the front of the car, chocked the rear wheels and put stands under the front wishbones, as well as a big jack, before carefully lowering the car again. I then ran it through the gears while a mate listened to each front wheel – yep, passenger side front noticeably noisy.

Then, I had to research how to sort this. The manuals all tell you that the front alloy suspension upright needs to come off and that is a potential nightmare on these as the steel bolts can well and truly seize in. But a bit of online research suggested that you could do it with the suspension fitted, but the driveshaft removed – sounds better! And someone else said you can even do it with the driveshaft in place!

Yes, you can do this and this is how we did it. But access to the four spline drive bolts is limited and if I were to do the job again, I’d spend an extra twenty minutes unbolting the driveshaft from the gearbox as well as the heat shield above, allowing the driveshaft to be pushed up, rearwards and out of the way. This then gives you perfect access to the bearing bolts as they need to be both torqued and angletightened, not easy with the CV joint in the way. But overall, a pretty simple job.

Another method is to use a slide hammer to pull the drive flange out first – this apparently gives the CV joint more room to move and enables you to leave the driveshaft in place. Choices, choices!

There are also two types of front hub and bearing, one to fit a thin driveshaft (the splined-end CV joint section) and one for fatter ones like ours. The part number for the fatter one is 415VG0090, and the corresponding wheel bearing is 413VG0630 – the skinny version is 413VG0110, but you’re unlikely to find one in the UK as they are fitted to the 1.6-litre cars not sold in the UK – the 1.8 and 2.0 cars upwards all seem to have the fatter driveshafts.

We ordered a new hub from GSF as it’s possible that the old hub could be seized into the bearing and we didn’t want the car marooned while we ordered a new hub. Looking at the design though, it’s little that a bench vice and an angle grinder couldn’t sort out even if it was seized on.