Ford Focus Mk2 Front Wheel Bearing
Renewing a
It’s a common issue on the FWD Ford Focus, so Rob Hawkins visits AES near York to replace a noisy wheel bearing on CM’s Mk2 Focus.
Awhining or rumbling noise coming from a road wheel can mean a number of problems, such as a collapsed/worn tyre, but more commonly a worn wheel bearing. CM’s Mk2 Focus had such a noise that was almost painfully loud when driving the vehicle on a motorway at 70mph, so it was one of those jobs that was hard to ignore.
Editor Knowles recently acquired the Focus seen here which is a 2006 model with a 1.6-litre Ti-VCT engine (variable camshaft timing). It’s undeniably a bargain banger, but being ULEZ compliant, still popular and potentially easy to sell. And with 122k on the clock, it appears to have plenty of life remaining in it, although there are several typical jobs to do, such as working out why the driver’s door window winds down, but only goes back up by holding the key fob lock button (door switch fails to operate the glass upwards); there’s a momentar y top-end rattle from the engine on a cold start-up; the heater only works on speeds three and four; the gearstick gaiter and centre console storage compartment have fallen apart; the fuel filler flap and driver’s door mirror cap are missing and the coolant temperature gauge rarely gets above 60°C. On the plus side, the front wings aren’t rusty (a common issue), but sadly the offside front has numerous dings and dents – we’ve bought a new wing in colour from a seller on eBay. We’ll be tackling these jobs (and probably more) throughout this year.
Replacing the front wheel bearing on a Focus requires the hub assembly to be changed, which contains the wheel bearings, so there’s no pressing to be done, but extracting the hub assembly does require some sort of puller.
Ideally, a wheel bearing removal and installation kit should be used, which ensures the old hub assembly can be properly extracted without damaging anything and the same applies to fitting the new hub assembly. Even small components, such as an ABS sensor, need to avoid getting damaged, and the kit that we were using caters for this. There are a number of different kits available, and we found one from Sealey that costs around £240 online.
We replaced the wheel hub assembly on the Mk2 Focus seen here using new parts from febi bilstein.
