I could hear noise from my front wheel and when manoeuvring at parking lot speed I could feel a pretty bad grinding/vibration, more noticeable with the bars turned sharp right.

I bought new tires, bearings and bearing tool, and got the wheels off and changed the bearings today ready to take the wheels to Cycle Gear tomorrow morning for tire change and balancing.

The front wheel bearings had discharged loads of grease and the rubber seals were loose - the right side bearing feels really rough, which I was not expecting with mileage as low as 9.4k
I have read a number of reports that HD have been using very poor quality cheap bearings, or had a bad batch - must of been one helluva large batch - wonder if they are still using cr@p bearings from this bad batch?

The rear bearings had discharge a little grease but felt smooth - they are the same type and size so of course they were also changed.

The bearings tool cost $88 and worked great - I used All ***** bearings, which appear to be much better than OEM cr@p with fairly good reviews.

 

I take it you never took it to a car wash and used their wand on the tires ?
That will trash bearings in a heart beat, to me 9.4 miles and new bearings needed is suspicious, the rubber seals could have not been seated correctly from the manufacture of the bearings.

 

My nightrain bearing at least lasted 15k lol.

 

I have an 06 with almost 30k and mine are good.

 

'08s are notorious for bearing failure, plenty of threads on this. H-D went from a double row ball bearing to single row.

 

Rear bearings on my '08 Fatboy replaced at 7.2K.

 

Well I hope I don't have that to look forward to on my 08.

 

I've seen a number of threads and most suggested poor quality bearings, but hadn't read about the switch from double to single race bearings - you would think that HD would develop a fix and recall all those with the single race.

In a way I was hoping that it was merely the ultra cheap Chinese bearings HD decided to use, because that way I could expect that my new good quality bearings that I've just installed to be a long term fix.

I have had many bikes in my time, and none of them ever needed wheel bearing replacement.

 

Combination of both single row and cheap. I would think a good quality bearing would be ok.

 

Just turned 45K this week, never had a prob with the bearings.

Also never use any high pressure anything to clean with, only garden hose after hand wash, then leaf blower to remove excess water and wipe dry.



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