Checking wheel bearings....

[abc40kids]

I just replaced my wheel bearings, seals and races..... They were long overdue. The first one I changed looked good with lots of grease still everywhere. The second one same side still plenty of grease but more discoloration in the grease. The third one looked like the second but the last wheel had the least amount of grease of all and wouldn't have made it much longer.

I guess when checking your bearings make sure you check all of them. If I would have based all 4 off the first one I would have thought I was in good shape. The worst one did have a little black from the old grease on the wheel and the seal was starting to fail.

I won't let it go so far before checking next time!

[Tgator1]

What did it cost you to replace everything? How much would you have paid to repack the bearings? I repacked mine about 2 years ago. Experienced discolored grease on one, but bearings looked ok, so just replaced seals. Makes you think about truck wheel bearings. I don't think its even a maintenance item on my current truck.

[Cummins12V98]

IMHO that was a huge waste of time and money.

Just because the grease was dark means nothing. How did the bearings and races look? Also the bearings you removed may have been of a higher quality than the new ones. Great you did maintenance but the bearings usually don't need replacing. Just clean, repack with new seals and you are good to go!

[MainerBob]

We just returned from a 12K mile winter trip around the country. I dropped the 5'er off at my local dealer who services it with a few little things it needed done. As an afterthought I asked if he thought we ought to do the wheel bearings. We decided to do them since it had been a while. He pulled the wheels on the curb side and the rear looked like a grease grenade had gone off in there. Glad we looked at it. While driving I had no indication at all that anything was wrong.

[TomHaycraft]

I'm curious to have a point of comparison, about how old and how many miles? General recommendations for trailer bearing service seem so much more frequent as compared to our TV bearings.

Also, looking back on the axle with the seal that was near failure, any signs of dirt accumulation from loss of lubricant? With hind-sight, tell-tale signs of the pending failure?

Thanks in advance.