Saaburu Experts.

I have a friend with a Saab 92/WRX thingy. Based on a loud noise coming from the right rear, he thinks that the bearing is failing. Any advice on changing one? Any special Subaru/Saab tools required? Is it going to turn out to be the CV joint?

Would not be surprised if it is the wheel bearing. Subaru eventually changed the spec to a double roller bearing that doesn't fail as easily. Slide hammer and wheel bearing adapter kit and a lot of cussing if you screw it up like I did on my Impreza.

I'll second that diagnosis. Subarus (especially from that era) seem to be hard on wheel bearings. Neighbor Greg's Forester XT (direct WRX/Saaburu relative) has the same symptoms, and my wife's car should be due in the next 20k miles or so.

I don't know what you guys have for miles, but we have over 120K on our 04 Forester XT with no bearing noise, so far. That being said, we just replaced some tires that made me think a bearing was going out. New tires...all is quiet, now. My point is that if you can borrow some wheels with known good tires from a friend/relative/whatever, it might save you some grief. I have a set of snows mounted on steelies that I used to prove it wasn't the bearing(s) Most of the bearing issues I have heard about were on pre-2000 cars.

I've done TWO Subaru rear wheel bearings.

One was on a '97 OBS that lived all but two years of its life in Oregon. Everything came apart nicely.

The other was on an '03 Impreza wagon. It quite literally took longer to get the axle out of the car than it did to pull and reinstall the engine.

That my Forester Tom's talking about. 2004 with 82,XXX miles. Didn't have the noise when we got it about 15,000 miles ago. Made the noise with the 17's on it and didn't go away like I hoped when I put the stock 16's on it.

Very common problem according to the interwebz. Collective wisdom says it may be easier to get it done at a mechanic if its a DD type vehicle as quite a few people have problem during disassembly and reassembly.

Local dealer quoted about $375 a piece for the rears. Says they do them all the time.

The hardest part is getting the long ass bolt out of the lower control arms... I've given up on my wifes and just take the spindel with the arms on it off. heat and cold are your freinds putting it back together. Buy parts from the dealer! (bring VIN) parts store units did not last and one seal was not right took 3 trips to get right seal. OEM lasted 80k, uprated OEM lasted 120 on driverside, passanger parts store brank lasted 40k redid with uprated dealer is got 60 on it now.

I haven't done one yet, but have seen more than a dozen done in the month and half I've been at the dealership. Nothing special except for the adaptor kit and slide hammer. sometimes they are a major pita, sometimes easy-peasy.
Guy in the bay beside me did one in less than an hour one time, next time took 7 hours.

The trailing arm long bolt sucks. It isnt a problem on Texas cars, but I have done the job on a few northern transplants and it was an absolute beating even with air tools, torch, and chemicals. It only took me about a half hour to do the job on my car but on a friends Ohio car it took over 3 hours to get the stupid knuckle off. The only "trick" I can offer up is to unbolt the trailing arm at the subframe instead of the long bolt if it is giving you a problem(and if the car is from PA I know it will). That and its worth it to use oem bearings and such.

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That trailing arm bolt sucks on pretty much any car that has one.

I lost that battle on my car in spectacular fashion about a month ago. (I think i still need to get pics, actually)

The car is from PA since new, so that't not good. The owner is my friends little sister, so it has not been abused, but probably not meticulously maintained either.

Some Googling says that rather than trying to press out the bearings and replace, just get the entire hub assembly as a replacement part. I will check that out too.