Wheel bearings

[bmwgsrider]

I am wondering how often does one replace their wheel bearings? I understand they should be replaced about every 30K miles. I currently have 42K miles on my bike and never had them replaced and currently looking into replacing the wheel bearings.

Thanks.

 

[PGlaves]

I am wondering how often does one replace their wheel bearings? I understand they should be replaced about every 30K miles. I currently have 42K miles on my bike and never had them replaced and currently looking into replacing the wheel bearings.

Thanks.

It is my carefully considered opinion, having watched it all unfold in the mid-1980s that sealed wheel bearings on classic K 75 and K100 bikes and the monolever Airheads are a "scheduled" replacement item because BMW got tired of replacing them after a couple of years and up to 100,000 or more miles under warranty. So, in the latter 1980s these items which were not scheduled maintenance became scheduled maintenance with (I thknk) a 36,000 mile interval. That schedule continued with the Oilheads and later bikes.

I manually check them by feel every time the front wheel is off a bike. If they exhibit no roughness, and the grease seals are intact the wheel goes back on the bike.

I replaced the originals on my K75T at 269,000 miles - noted "preventive" in my log. I was prepping the bike for the '99 Iron Butt Rally.

On Voni's R1100RS I replaced the left (big) one at 84,000 miles, then both at 185,000 miles, and again at 289,000 miles.

My R1150R is at 157,000 miles on the original bearings.

For early warning look at the grease seals, and look around the axles and spacers. If you see signs of black grease the seal is leaking and the bearing will fail one of these days. This is the exact opposite approach than used for earlier Airheads, where if you didn't see a little grease the unsealed bearing was dry and needed to be greased.

If you enjoy doing such tasks, it is easy to pop off the grease seal and repack the bearings. I don't normally do that because in original condition they last a good long time anyway.