I probably repack my wheel bearings more often than needed but I’ve also never have had a problem and haven’t been that guy that you needed to change lanes for. I repack every year regardless of 10,000 mile rule-of-thumb. Here’s my question- if you have Buddy Bearings or EZ-lube style axels or hubs with built in zerk fittings (I have both) does this change your thought process on frequency of repacking? When I repack- I’ve already placed grease in the bearing so I never pump the zerk with grease- what do you do?

Why have the buddy bearings then?

I have Bearing Buddies for that reason. My understanding was the spring, outside, surrounding the zerk pushed the grease in. Never had a problem and trailer my boat a lot.

Easiest answer is ...they came with the trailer- for me it's a mindset hurdle I would need to overcome and why I'm asking. I'm not sure I trust the mechanism- with the EZ-Lube you pump the zerk with grease and it pushes the old grease out of the back bearing - I guess if you keep pumping it fills the hub and then reaches the front bearing.

It depends on the trailer for me. I have a StarCraft boat trailer that has a version of the bearing buddies that has a grease fitting but when I repacked the bearings I noticed none of the fresh grease ever pushed into the bearings enough to do any good so it gets repacked regularly. On the other hand we have a gooseneck flatbed tri axle that our commercial boat sits on with the zerk fittings on that thing does darn near a complete repack forcing out the old grease and putting fresh actually in the bearings.

Never had good luck with bearing buddies. Raised on a farm and use to repacking bearings. Doesn't take long and then you KNOW fresh grease is in it and all the old dirty/watery grease is out. Peace of mind and no problems

You pump it full until the top cap comes out to the outside edge. Do that twice a year on a bearing buddy you won't have issues. Problems happen when they sit and no grease is put in for a couple of years. UNLESS the seal goes bad. If that happens the top cap won't come out when putting in grease. Also matters if the bearing buddies/ other brand was retro fitted after the trailer was bought or if wheel bearing was designed for bearing buddies. Your doing A LOT of unnecessary work. Same thing is if you had an electric start riding mower that had a pull cord back up. Would you just use the pull cord each time because some other guy was sitting in his yard with a dead battery on his?

They really don’t chand my mind about the time of packing the wheel bearing but the one thing I do is after repacking if there is a zerk that goes between the two bearing I put grease in there until I start to see the grease in the front bearing move then I quit, that way there’s grease in the center that can move into the bearings if needed. The bearing buddy I think works best on boats where people put the hubs into the water I think you should fill them first then back into the water so the grease holds the water out.

I understand your concern

I found in practice they work till the rear seal ruptures and you get water intrusion

my dad bought a new boat and trailer in 1990 ez-loader trailer with the original bearing buddies used Marine grease Lubramatic brand because he had the mini grease gun and min cartridges that he kept with the boat
probably 2-3 times a year he would fill the buddy bearings
we took that boat all over the place lived 20 miles from the launch fished weekly , took it from SE WI to Lac du Flambue every year and to Door county every year , Canada every other year , lake Erie a few times , up to Pool 4 on the Miss

he had that boat till 2013 and I can't ever remember him pulling to repack

when you think about how little grease you get in a bearing on an older Ford 2wd front end your packing maybe an ounce and a half into that bearing and you get 30K-40 maybe more between brake jobs I went 80K on my first set of tires and breaks on my 2001 E350

if you put 3K miles on a boat trailer a year that is a good amount

I would every spring when you get the boat out for the first time inspect he buddy bearings see how far in they are give them a pump till they are about 3/4 of the way out pick up the axle and spin the tire if it spins free with no noise rock top bottom side size and have no play and not slowing down quick good to go , maybe for your own piece of mind take them apart every 20-30K miles after all a ford front end went that easy. inspecting that rear seal would be more important if it is ruptured you get nasty brown water mixed grease around it when. you grease it and drive a bit

so the best tool might be a hand mirror to inspect that inner seal

water intrusion is the bigger issue for how far most boat trailers get pulled

I have been running buddy bearings on my utility trailer for about a decade I grease once a year to every other year and have had no issues

I had a bad bearing on my boat trailer last year , I bought it that way I bought the boat in need of a rebuild from my supervisor he owned it 8 years stored it outside and never greased them one was fine one was water intrusion the boat and trailer is 1991 it didn't have buddy bearings the guys who owned it before him kept great records and did all the maintenance.

10K is a long time on a trailer

but you could probably go out to 30K with no issues especially if you had the bearing buddies

I like bearing buddies, but I've had bearings go out with them. I think they help, but they are a little bad for blowing seals if you overfill them with grease. I pack my bearings even with bearing buddies, but I might go two years between packing them if the trailer has them. My fourwheeler and snowmobile trailers get around 10,000 miles a year on them, so if I go two years between packing bearings that is quite a few miles. Used to say every time I changed tires I repacked the bearings, but went to running high mileage radial car tires on them and that puts too many miles on the bearings then.

I prefer the hubs with zerks in between the inner and outer bearings. You know both bearings are getting greased, unlike bearing buddies that may not push the grease to the inner bearings. Still need to make sure you dont over grease and I still prefer to pull bearings and pack manually every 5 or 6 years. That visual inspection just gives me a little peace of mind . Thats how I do it but im sure others have ways that have worked well for them...

Do you do the same for the vehicle pulling the trailer?

No- probably 60,000 miles or every brake job

I have bearing buddys on my boat trailer. I use the grease zerk and I fill them 2-3x a year. Takes about 2 min for both sides and it's really easy to do, pull off the cap, put on the grease gun a couple or 5 pumps until it comes out the indicator hole, put the cap back on and done. If I didn't have them, I'm sure I'd neglect them. No problems for over 15 years now with the bearings.

On boat trailers with bearing buddies i always repacked every year. Have the new dexter ez lube on the camper and been following the dexter instructions on hand pumping grease slowly in until i see some new grease. I did notice the hubs running cooler then the day I picked it up. When you do this job pull the dust cover caps off. Made it easier to wipe the old grease off. All that being said it leave me a little worried as i dont know what the rear seal is doing. Ill prob put a camera in the brake drum to take a peek. Or do a complete job every 3-5 years.

exactly why would trailer bearings not make 30K when front wheel bearings on a car/truck go 2-3 times that

heck the sealed bearing hub units on the 4wd I got 155K on the first one to go bad at 175K now still going one passenger side , I guess the difference being you can't hear a bad bearing as easily on a trailer nor feel it in the wheel. so an inspection at some time interval makes sense , greasing the buddy bearings and spinning the wheel push top bottom left right for play

Pack the Bearing Buddy's every time we hit the road, and I keep a spare pair of bearings in the truck. That's something you can do on the side of the road.

It’s all about the grease. Many grades and quality. Do the research it’s out there!

On my camper, I have zerks on the end of the axle. Not Bearing Buddies. About 2 or 3 times a year, I will give them 7-8 pumps with the grease gun. This spring I pulled the hubs off and replaced the bearings and seals. They where full of grease, but not pushing out the seal. Camper is a 2008 and had the original bearings yet. Just thought it was time to replace, but I wouldn't of had too. The key is not to over grease.