Grease and Bearing

I have worked on vehicles for over 50 years, and contrary what you think, wheel bearings do not consume grease. You may get slight leakage do to a seal going bad, but have never seen that cause a bearing to go dry. My own truck recommend that bearings be repacked at 60K, I did them at 58K and they were in perfect condition. I have seen bearing go 100K without any problems. More brakes have probably been ruined by over greasing, when excess grease has no where to go but inside the brake drum.

Our newest trailer is 3 years old, towed over 15K miles. Just pulled the wheels to regrease and IMHO there was no real reason to regrease, although I did. Plenty of grease, no moisture, bearings in good shape, so other than checking the brakes etc. there was really no reason to do anything. My other trailer is 10 years old, bearings never repacked, has about 25K miles on it. will pull them this fall to check and compare. I'm inclined to let them go 4 years at least , 25K miles before checking again. I still don't understand why trailer bearings need repacking so much more often than similar bearings on cars, which will go 100K easily.

My neighbor is pulling a 28ft cargo trailer, has about 150K miles on it in the last 10 years and he pulled the wheels and replaced brake shoes at 100K, said bearings were still in good shape and plenty of grease.

We do ours every other year and average 6-8K miles a year. Would be a good idea to at least check them to be sure they were properly greased to begin with as there have been reports to the contrary. I do my own and they still have plenty of grease with no real wear noted from the last repacking.

And is this a good video to follow...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6ndN_9NQL4

Thank's
Martin