WHAT DO PEOPLE SAY ABOUT DURAHUB : FRANK UGOLINI

My name is Frank Ugolini. I own an 18 foot fibreglass power boat which is trailered on a dual axle trailer with Electric Brakes on one axle.

Over the years, I have tried using bearing protectors, which have the grease pressurised inside the hub and still found that I have gone through bearings due to water being drawn into the hubs when launching/retrieving my boat at the boat ramps.

The problem with the above systems is that I still had to pull down the hubs and remove the bearing every year (which they inevitably needed to be replaced due to water ingression anyway) as there was no way of telling if the bearings had been subjected to water early to prevent actually having to replace them or worse - being caught on the side of the road with the unpleasant surprise of blowing the bearings. This is not a job that is fun to do on the side of the road.

I recently purchased 2 x pairs of Durahubs (One for each Axle). I installed them myself which was relatively easy to do. At the time, I put a set of brand new bearings on each of the 4 hubs. When installing them, I accidentally damaged one of the seals that came with the kits.  Not realising the importance of using the high quality seals that come with the Durahub system, I just use a seal that came with the bearings I had bought. The only visible difference was that the ones that Durahub supply have a spring garter built into the seal. The one I used didn't - but was supposed to be waterproof.

As a result, I saw the benefit of the Durahub visible window soon after my first outing. After retrieving the boat, I checked the window's on all 4 Durahubs and saw straight away from the milky colour of the oil, that water had gotten into the hub which had the different seal. Thanks to this, I am able to replace that seal this week end when I have some time before any damage will be done to the bearings. On the old system, I would not know and wouldn't check them for another year and would risk blowing the bearings and having to replace them on the side of the road.

I have noticed a couple of other things already.

  1. The hubs of all four of the trailer wheels used to get quite hot when running grease and now, the two wheels without breaks were stone cold after 50 minutes on a highway and the two hubs with brakes were barely warm. Obviously this heat was from the brakes being used a little.
  2. When I installed the system, with the wheels jacked up, you can immediately see the friction difference running oil(virtually none) versus grease, when you spin the wheel on the axle in the air.

I haven't yet done any fuel consumption tests, I do know what the fuel consumption was with the previous grease based system and will report back what impact it had on fuel consumption when I next tow the boat. I am confident that there will be some difference based on above.

I would also like to take the opportunity to thank Andy for your helpfulness on the phone and great attitude to customer service. Customer Service is becoming more and more difficult to come by and I really appreciate it when someone I deal with goes the extra mile to help me out.  Once again, Thank you for your service and a great product which is simple and easy to install.

P.S. If you could come up with a system like this for Landcruisers, you would make a killing! Toyota repack the bearings every 20,000K service and allow 6-8 hours for this job! If you do come up with a system for 4WD's, let me know!

Best Regards,
Frank Ugolini, June 2005