Video of Fitting VW Passat B6 Front Wheel Bearing Replacement (2005-2010 model Passat)

The front wheel bearing on my 2007 model VW Passat B6 had started to become noisy so I decided to replace and fit a new bearing to it. The wheel bearing for the VW Passat is a sealed unit so the hub gets replaced as well as the central bearing too.

I purchased a new bearing unit from the local car spares shop which came to £95. The tricky part was fitting it to the car! The bearing requires the brake disc to be removed and for the old bearing to be removed from the lower arm. Both of these are locations that seem to suffer from significant corrosion making removal rather hard but unsurprising given the road debris and moisture that they are subject to.

Tools you will need for the job:

17mm socket for wheel bolts
27mm socket for central bolt to driveshaft
21mm socket to remove brake caliper
16mm socket to remove lower arm bolts
M18 Spline socket to remove 4 bearing unit bolts
Torx T30

Rubber mallet
Hammer & chisel

Fitting VW Passat B6 Front Wheel Bearing Replacement (2005-2010 model Passat)

VW Passat B6 Front Wheel Bearing Replacement (2005-2010 model Passat) - new bearing assembly

You may possibly require 24mm socket to fit the new hub bolt - the replacement came with 24mm bolt to replace the original 27mm driveshaft bolt. To remove the brake pads from the caliper requires a 7mm allen key.

The step by step procedure for removing the front wheel bearing on the VW Passat is as follows:

Jack and remove wheel from car
Place axle stand under car for safety
Remove sensor from caliper, separate plug socket
Remove caliper and secure to coil spring to prevent damage to brake pipe
Remove central driveshaft bolt
Remove 16mm lower arm bolts x3 to give access to the 4 bolts to rear of bearing unit
Drop lower arm out of way of hub unit
Remove bearing bolts x 4
Remove brake disc torx screw x1
Remove brake disc
Remove hub unit

Removing the brake disc and hub unit may require force using the mallet for brake disc and the hammer/chisel for the hub unit. Some WD40 may help to loosen the joints.

Refitting Passat wheel bearing is the opposite and a much easier task!

How long does it take to fit Front Wheel Bearing Replacement for VW Passat B6?

The job in total took us around 2 hours. Out of that time around 1.5 hours was spent on removing the original and only 30 minutes to fit the replacement bearing to the car.