Taking a poll here…what lifetimes are ya'll seeing on your Never Lube bearings. Our 39 foot New Horizon has triple axles and is 22,000 pounds loaded. In the 4.5 years since delivery in June 12 we've got about 38,000 towing miles.

We'll be in Valparaiso in May to pick up our new RAM 5500HD and can either get them done then…or alternatively drop by Elkhart in the fall on the way south to Florida or next spring on the way to the southwest. The latter two options add about 1500 miles each of out of the way travel to go via Elkhart instead of the way we would go otherwise.

I know of 3 roadside failures…one each at about 11K, 38K, and 58K…and know that Howard and Linda (at least I think it was them) caught one at about 3K that would have failed since the C ring had come out of the groove.

I hate to waste bearing lifetime…but they're only 200 bucks each plus installation…and with a 50K warranty I can't help but feel that the people that make them figure that's about their lifetime so at this point I'm leaning slightly toward getting them done while we're in Indiana this year to prevent the out of the way travel either this year or next…it's way out of the way from NY to FL via 95 or from FL to Nevada via 10 and we would have no other reason to detour.

Figured I would get thoughts from the group as part of making a decision.

First one failed after 15 months and about 10K miles, the 2nd failed at about 24 months and 20K miles. The third was replaced since the wiggle was a bit more than spec after 60 months and 60K miles. The 4th is still going strong as are the replacement bearings.  As I said in an earlier post on this subject, checking bearing temps with an infra-red temp probe when you take a break is a good way to keep from having a catastrophic failure. The 2nd bearing that failed was caught that way before any damage was done. I travel with two extra bearing/brake hubs in the rig. Also, all three that were replaced were on different axle positions so I can't say that one position is worse or better.

Lance

Lance:

Neil and I have had long discussions concerning “Nev-R-Lubs” so I won’t repeat those here.

But I do agree checking the bearings often with an Infrared Gun is a very good idea.  I do that with ever stop, and did including just before one of our Nev-R-Lubs failed and wiped out the spindle as well.  Another one failed with less than 30 minutes of travel on a cool day and only 11,000 miles on it.  So with Nev-R-Lubs, it’s pretty much a crap shoot, IMO, unless you get lucky like you did.  I did as well a third time and caught the retaining ring moving out of the grove.  Found that during an inspection at MOR/ryde.

So for those reading along – by all means – check the bearings / hubs / brakes with an infrared gun.  Compare the temps one to another to get an idea if any one of them is out of line temp wise.

But from long experience now, I can tell you, it’s a crap shoot with Nev-R-Lubs and if the bearing fails you will tear up the spindle – completely.  “Ask me how I know this – twice.” 

(My failures were on different axles as well.)

Our rig now has “split” grease-able / conventional bearings, BTW.

Bill

Thanks all…I think we're going to go ahead and preemptively do ours in the Fall on the way south from the Canadian Maritime provinces…we'll have almost 50K miles on them by that point. I have 2 spare hubs courtesy of Bill Napier…since he doesn't need them anymore.

I'm still toying with the idea of changing over to split bearings like he has instead of the Never Lube ones…have to figure out the added cost as more than just the bearings need to be replaced to switch…and I haven't discussed  with Connie yet about having to have them pulled and greased annually and replaced probably every other year if we did that. 

I continue to check temps every couple time we stop while driving…but as Bill said it's a crapshoot and you just know it will fail immediately after you check the temp.