Front hub bearing

Replacing Disco 2 front hub bearings isn’t the big job you might think it is, assuming all goes well. Trevor Cuthbert reports

Not the big job you might think it is

THE front wheel bearings on the Discovery 2 will give many miles of trouble-free motoring – my own particular model needed no attention in this area until now, some 17 years and 120k miles into its life. However, unlike earlier Land Rovers, the wheel bearings are part of a sealed hub unit and the assembly is not intended to be serviced, nor would it be easy to do so. Instead, the complete hub is replaced, and this includes a new ABS sensor and cable, new wheel hub and new wheel studs. This means that replacing the wheel bearing is a more expensive exercise than with earlier Land Rovers, although it is arguably an easier task, with no particular skill needed to set the bearing to the correct tightness and no need to replace hub seals or any other associated components.

Why does the wheel bearing need to be replaced? The short answer is wear – in this case, during a pre-mot check when I jacked up each wheel and found undue play as the wheel was shaken back and forth.

Another indicator of wear in the wheel bearing is when the infamous ‘three amigos’ light up on the dashboard. The three amigos are three warning lights: for ABS, hill descent control and traction control. When illuminated, they tell the driver there is a fault with these features and they will not function – so prepare for a locking wheel or two under heavy braking and no traction control in slippery conditions. On checking the ‘Trouble Codes’ using a diagnostic tool such as Hawkeye by Bearmach, there might be a message like ‘Air gap too large for front left hub’, or ‘Broken wire or sensor at front left hub’. The trouble codes are usually recorded due to wear or play in the relevant wheel bearing. There are of course other causes for the three amigos lights illuminating.