richardr
Senior Member
I think the best data I've see on this is from Larry Gamble of Little House Customs. Here is a copy of his posting in the Casita Forum (which use the same Dexter axils the Escapes use):
"If done correctly it's OK, but we see dozens every year that failed. The trailer comes in for wheel bearing service, and to us that means new bearings, races and seals. The seal is blown out, grease is all over the brake shoes and you never replace shoes without replacing the drums. So the price of wheel bearing service just tripled....to a price point that is a bit over 50% of the price of a new axle complete with a fresh non sagging suspension, new brakes, drums and 10 shiny lug nuts. Parts and labor combined.
The seals wear and of course the spring inside compensates for this but only to a point. After x number of miles it's time for new seals and how do you know without dismantling?
To us the EZLube is a shortcut that doesn't address important things like bearing adjustment. When we're not looking at blown seals, (or sometimes then too) we see way too loose bearings and a groove has begun to wear in the bottom of the spindle. As microscopic metal particles find their way under the seal it begins to wear a groove in the spindle where the seal rotates as well. A new seal with a clean coating of grease might be in order on something of a regular basis.
Since we see and service so many (around 150 a year) we get a good picture of an average. Ok, so if you're Mr. or Mrs. Maintenance you are probably beating our average, but from what we see, every 12,000 miles put in new bearings, seals and races. Adjust them correctly and check that adjustment after 1000 miles. In addition to the volume, we also get repeats. There are Casita's with 140 thousand miles on them that we have serviced since they were new. Since we see those trailers every 12,000 miles or so, we get a good perspective on what's beginning to wear at that point.
So, I might be preaching to the choir here, but our scrap metal trailer currently has 9 axles on it now and we haul it twice a year. A few were old worn out welded on axles but most are 5 or 6 year old bolt on axles with extreme wear on the spindles or grease all over the inside of the drum. In those cases the customer elected a new axle. .
So if you're going to use the EZ Lube, do it right. But it's no substitute for an inspection. In our experience it just buys you some time.
To be fair, we've serviced plenty of Casita's with 30 or 40 thousand miles on the bearings with nothing done other than the EZ Lube process. But those cases are very much at the bottom of our average. And to be even more fair, folks who properly care for their bearings themselves, using either method, don't usually bring them to us so we don't see them distorting the average of what we see."
