[SwedishSubaru]

My '17 forester had at least one bad rear wheel bearing with loud humming. hoping to save money, my father-in-law and I replaced both rears ourselves with aftermarket parts. Noise went away but there was immediately the Christmas tree dash lights (ABS, hill assist, traction control, eyesight navigation). The codes confirmed that there was a faulty rear, right ABS sensor signal. Since the codes were just pointing to one and not both ABS sensors, my hunch was that we either broke the sensor or it just got shifted out of place.

I wasn't able to take it back apart on my own, so I brought it to my local shop to have them troubleshoot it. Apparently, we broke the ABS sensor and slightly bent part of the axle baffle plate/ring that sits behind the wheel bearing. They quoted me at roughly $700 in parts and labor to replace the broken ABS sensor, take the new bearing off and work out the dent in the baffle plate. The baffle plate is like a $10 part so I don't know why they would even mess with fixing it unless its hard to remove and replace? The ABS sensor should be a $150-$200 part. They said $350 each for parts and labor.

The parts seem overpriced and the labor seems 1-2 hours more than it should take considering the bearing was just put on. I just want to be sure I'm not getting ripped off. Is this a reasonable quote?
Thanks

 

[eelnod]

It should be much easier to remove the bearing second time around since you just replaced it recently. I assume that the toughest part is removing the stuck bearing. Perhaps you only need to replace the ABS sensor. Why not try the swap the right and left sensor first to see if that's all you need.

 

[SwedishSubaru]

It should be much easier to remove the bearing second time around since you just replaced it recently. I assume that the toughest part is removing the stuck bearing. Perhaps you only need to replace the ABS sensor. Why not try the swap the right and left sensor first to see if that's all you need.

That was my thought as well with the new bearing. I appreciate the suggestion too. The shop did confirm it was the right sensor. I think I'm just going to cut my losses with the $100 diagnostic the shop charged me, and order a new ABS sensor and replace it myself. I may try your suggestion before I install the new sensor just to see.

Worst case, that doesn't do it, I can take the bearing off and replace the backing plate as well. Has anyone ever had to replace one of those backing plates before?

 

[Kevin]

Some after-market hub assemblies are not compatible; see these posts #20 thru #27:

(All Years) - Sackett's g-whiz posts - a.k.a...

Trying to restore my street cred so starting a new thread with things I see in the shop. Today's picture is the geared idler pulley in the timing belt. It is THE MOST FAILED PART in the timing belt system. I do not stress over subaru water pumps. The one on the right was the lucky one. It failed...

www.subaruforester.org

 

[SwedishSubaru]

Posting my experience since I just went thru this on my 2018 Forester XT touring with 85,000 miles. I think the bearing noise started at 60,000 but wasn't bad until recently.
#1, it took forever to get the old bearing out!!! As in about 9 hours overall for the job including rest breaks and multiple breaks waiting for WD-40 & PB blaster to work. But really, there were hours of beating on it with increasing weight sledge hammers before it finally came out. Plus lots of web searching and video watching trying to figure out how to get it out.
#2, unless you have really good hammer aim and a lot of patience you might want to remove the parking brake shoes so you don't hit those like I did 😕 Reassembly isn't difficult, mostly pulling springs in place.
#3, as someone else posted, the backing plate on the axle somehow got a dent in it that I didn't notice. So when I reassembled and gave the wheel a spin by hand to test I heard 2-3 click sounds. That was the dent breaking the ABS sensor 😭
#4, this task really isn't technically difficult. The main problem is getting the old bearing out, so for some people it could go pretty quickly, probably done in 2 hours. Second worst part of the job is trying to line up the bolts to mount the new bearing assembly - I highly recommend a second set of hands and eyes as I did the job by myself and those bolts alone took about 30 minutes.

THANK YOU to everyone who came here before me and posted their experience.👏

Hey it sounds like we had the same situation on ours! I just replaced both rear wheel bearings. Worst part was getting them off like you said. I second your tip with the PB Blaster, that stuff was key!
Unfortunately, I also appear to have broken one of the ABS sensors when putting the bearing on or cleaning out around the axle backing plate.
Did you get the assortment of dash lights after you broke the sensor (ABS, traction control, hill assist, eyesight)?
Where you able to replace the ABS sensor your self? Did you have to replace or fix the dented backing plate?

 

[Theseus161]

The speed sensor replacement price is way too much. It’s a $150 part (each) but takes 5 minutes to replace. I wouldn’t bother trying to fix that baffle plate. Just replace it.

 

[SwedishSubaru]

The speed sensor replacement price is way too much. It’s a $150 part (each) but takes 5 minutes to replace. I wouldn’t bother trying to fix that baffle plate. Just replace it.

I agree, the ABS cost is really just the part. Looks like $200 for Subaru OEM in my are. My concern is accessing the baffle plate to replace it. Do you know if that can be replaced separately or does the entire CV axle need to be replaced? I haven't been able to find any info on that besides a parts diagram that shows the baffle plate as part #28337A "CV Joint Oil Seal Dust Shield"

 

[eelnod]

My understanding is that the ABS sensor is just a bolt-on part onto the frame assembly.

 

[eelnod]

At least from this diagram.

 

[SwedishSubaru]

ABS sensor, yes you're right. That bolts right into the hub.
My bad, in my previous post I meant to say accessing the axle baffle plate to replace the baffle plate (or in other words the axle dust shield). The axle shield is that small metal ring on the axle that is supposed to sit behind the ABS sensor. (example photo below)

Apparently while replacing the rear wheel bearings, I bent one of the axle shields. That shield was bent enough to rub against or was in front of the ABS sensor and broke the sensor. I never heard of this happening in any of the videos I watched on replacing the bearings. However, I've had two shops look at my car and both confirmed the shield is bent and ABS sensor is broken.
I either have bad luck or really messed up one of my bearing installs. The shop said the axle dust shield cannot be replaced separately and instead the whole axle needs to be replaced for that wheel.
This seems really stupid as its just a flimsy little metal ring. I can't find much information out there on that axle shield to be able to verify if the shop is right or not. I'll post an update if I find any more info

 

[eelnod]

I'm afraid you might have to pull the hub out to replace the shield. I don't understand why you have to change the axle though unless you have damages done to the axle. You might not want to trust the shops. Again, simple enough to pull the sensor out to see if you in fact have damaged it. By the way, what tool did you use to pull the old hub out?

 

[SwedishSubaru]

When you say the hub, is that as in the knuckle that the axle goes through and the bearing screws into?

We used a combination of a 3-jaw gear puller and a cold chisel/flat head screw driver to get the bearings out. Once we had a small gap between the backing plate and the hub, we were able to use the chisel to slowly wedge the backing plate off with the bearing attached to it.
The shops didn't say anything about the axle rod itself, just the dust shield being bent. I suppose I can follow up with one of them again to confirm the condition of the rod.

I don't have my own tools required to pull the hub out, I used my father-in-laws at his garage to do the bearings. So I will have to wait another couple weeks until I can get back down there to use his garage.
I can take the tire off and check the sensor. That would at least make me feel better knowing the sensor replacement is justified.

 

[eelnod]

The hub is the unit that contains the bearings that you pulled out from the knuckle. The axle goes through the hole where you then put the big nut through. If you had applied some antiseize on the hub surfaces before to reassembled it, you might be able to pull it out simply by putting the rotor on backwards with a few turns of the lug nuts then “bang” the hub out.

 

[SwedishSubaru]

Alright I follow you now. Yeah that idea could work, I'm hoping it wouldn't be much effort since we did use an anti-sieze and cleaned the inside of the hub. If I can get back down to my father-in-laws garage in the next week or so I'm probably going to try that.
I did get a revised quote from the second shop to replace the ABS sensor and instead just reshape/fix the dust shield plate for ~ $400 total. If all else fails and I can't do it myself, that's my back up plan.
Thanks again for the advice and suggestions

 

[eelnod]

Alright I follow you now. Yeah that idea could work, I'm hoping it wouldn't be much effort since we did use an anti-sieze and cleaned the inside of the hub. If I can get back down to my father-in-laws garage in the next week or so I'm probably going to try that.
I did get a revised quote from the second shop to replace the ABS sensor and instead just reshape/fix the dust shield plate for ~ $400 total. If all else fails and I can't do it myself, that's my back up plan.
Thanks again for the advice and suggestions

I get it that you've damaged the sensor, but how the bent shield is related to the damage is in question. If the shield is not hitting anything, perhaps all you have to do is put in a new sensor. Again, swapping right and left sensors will give you the answer unless you're saying the bent shield will damage the replacement sensor.

 

[forjonny]

Subaru Forester 2019 basic model: What do I do when this happens while I am just driving along on the freeway at 60 Mph? The computer just went crazy and my steering gets tight.

The lights that come on are the yellow ones marked as: brakes(pink or red), ABS, Eyesight, Exclamation mark, separate yellow Off logo, yellow logo with car going over the right lane lines and saying Off. Been to a dealership twice and they can't find a thing. It usually goes away after a day or after I turn the car off a couple of times, then goes off while I am driving. It is scary when it happens.

I have a clean windshield all the time because of the camera. I have a picture of the screen as well.
I will post a picture of the dash here.