Hello from Brisbane.

This is probably re-opening an old debate, but I was wondering if anyone has any direct and longer-term experience with durahubs on their boat trailers. I write this from the perspective on a non-mechanic, but still reasonably OK with a spanner.

I bought a set of durahubs from Supercheap about 3 years ago in a fit of enthusiasm when I got my present boat and trailer which was then fitted with a cheap brand of `bearing buddies’ – previously had a small tinny car-topped on a box trailer. I was planning to do a good bit of interstate running with the boat trailer and had heard that oil filled hubs were likely to be better suited to the task than grease and buddies.

Anyway, they sat under the workbench as a ‘must get on to it’ job until about a year ago when I thought I had better use them or lose them as part of a cleanup. I asked the guy at Supercheap if they had much feedback on the hubs and got the not unexpected response – “Nah! Good as gold etc”. Also asked if he actually knew anything about them and also got “Nah!.............”.

So, I checked the web and found a boating forum which generally gave them a fair pizzling as being close to crap. Most of the adverse comments seemed to come from people who did not actually have direct experience with durahubs, and a good many seemed to be based on objection to the $100 cost (approx) or concern at the consequences if they did fail, rather than experience with actual failure. However, there were also a few testimonials about feats of endurance that seemed to come from people who did actually have durahubs on their trailers.

Whatever, I stuck to the bearing buddies and recently had to replace a couple of bearings which seemed to have suffered from water ingress past the seals. I replaced the original buddies with a (claimed) better quality set from NZ, but gather that this experience is not all that uncommon either. I do try to let the hubs cool down a bit before launching which I understand to be an accepted piece of advice for preventing the inner seals shrinking on immersion.

Anyway, one New Year resolution is to check out the durahub situation one more time. My question is – does anyone have direct experience with durahubs good or bad? Failing that, what is the best maintenance routine for long distance travel with bearing buddies (e.g. 500-1000kms).

Cheers,