My husband has a dodge 3500 extended van that he uses for work. He is a floor installer, so he carries carpet, laminate, tile, and his tools in the van daily. We bought the van just over a year ago. He has put just under 40,000 miles on it (it has a totol of 211,000), and he is now on his 3rd set of bearings on the front. The van was upgraded by adding an extra leaf to the suspension on each side by the previous owner. It is a good sturdy van. The body is in almost perfect condition and it runs great, but it seems like we are always having to replace something for the front end. Is this a common problem, or could it be because of how it was modified? Is it that the front end is taking too much of the stess of the road and the load of whatever he's carrying that day? He just replaced the bearings 3 months ago, and now they are going bad again. (and that seems to be the trend, every 3-4 months they go bad)I was just wondering.Thanks
Wow! thats really too soon to be replacing the bearings,there is DEFINETLY other severely worn parts in the front end, you should take the van to a front end specialist and have them look at it.Question;does he replace the race also when replacing the bearings? if he doesn't, that is the problem, you MUST replace the ''race also ,and if he does, then the problem is with other worn parts in the front end.
Use a bearing packer that you can hook to a grease gun, don't use the old hand method. Also make sure you are using grease suitable for disc brakes, this type of grease can withstand much higher temps without running out of the bearings. I use synthetic grease in my wheel bearings. Try it like this one time and see how it goes.
I would suspect poor quality bearings.there suppose to last years if there kept lubricated,and that's usually required every thirty thousand miles.I would check to see if there are a better quality bearings available.
