Wheel Bearing Grease

[ftm1776]

I'm doing a brake job on the rears. Inspection of the bearings shows no suspicious wear so I'm not going to replace them.

I'm going to clean them thoroughly along with the hubs; remove the old grease and repack.

Bentley's says "Use only multiputpose (lithium) grease to lubricate the rear wheel bearings. Other greases will not maintain adequate lubrication and may lead to bearing failure".

Is this out of date advice?    bad advice?

Would any type of wheel bearing grease do the job just fine???

Should I wash the old grease out of the bearings and replace with fresh rather than have old and new grease mix??

Comments, please.

[bajacalal]

I'm not sure what other grease they had in mind (bacon grease?), just get something that says its rated for wheel bearings. It will probably say "disc brake wheel bearing and chassis grease" so get that and try to get as much of the old out as you can. There was at one point grease that wasn't rated for the heat disc brakes make, it was for drums only, but I won't know if its even still made but if it is get the stuff rated for disc brakes, its better. I use the synthetic stuff but that's probably overkill.

[Toby]

As BC said any modern wheel bearing grease is fine.

You will want to get all of the old grease out if possible from the hub and ALL of it out of the wheel bearings. Wash them in gas and blow them dry with compressed air. DO NOT ALLOW THE BEARING TO SPIN while blowing dry. Make sure they are clean and dry with absolutely no grit left inside making them crunch when rotated.

Pack them COMPLETELY full of grease. There are probably YouTube videos showing you how. Wiping some grease on the outside won't do. You need to pack grease into one end until it comes out the other.

I never replace a bearing that is serviceable. Too many times you will replace one with a tiny bit of color only to find the crap from the parts store fails within a year.

[ftm1776]

OK. I've cleaned the beaings and hub....now I'll use solvent to remove all of the residue.

The bearings and races look and feel fine.......290,000 on the originals !!!

23 years hence, I'm afraid we have a different standard of quality.....!!!!

Good tips !!!

[Dubdoc]

Grease is critical for life in these bearings and your choices could come back to bite you. When I did mine last, a master mechanis suggested Mobil 1 Synthetic Grease (it's pink). I've tried it and am very pleased with the results. Also, in Canada, a wheel bearing kit with the seal, both bearings, a nut-lock and a new dust cap is $13.00 taxes in. Why on earth would I reuse a bearing with a lot of miles on it? After all, this seems to be a VW weakness.

[vanbcguy]

Grease is critical for life in these bearings and your choices could come back to bite you. When I did mine last, a master mechanis suggested Mobil 1 Synthetic Grease (it's pink). I've tried it and am very pleased with the results. Also, in Canada, a wheel bearing kit with the seal, both bearings, a nut-lock and a new dust cap is $13.00 taxes in. Why on earth would I reuse a bearing with a lot of miles on it? After all, this seems to be a VW weakness.

New aftermarket parts often don't have the same quality steel as OEM parts from 20+ years ago.  For instance lots of folks have way better luck re-greasing used OEM CV joints compared to brand new aftermarket ones, to the point of going to the scrapyard to look for OEM CVs rather than just buying new aftermarket.

I'm about to do the wheel bearings on Jezebel though - my original bearings have noticeable marks on the rollers so I think they are done.  I bought new Febi/Bilstein bearing kits and yes, they were quite affordable.