When your bearings start to go bad, it’s tempting to just let them go for a week or two. You can wait until you can find a convenient time to get your machine into the shop or on a lift, right?

If you don’t submerge your machine or subject it to tons of sand and dust, you can grease it less often and still have bearings that can last the lifetime of the vehicle.

Next, do they clunk on sharp turns? Bad bearings make your wheels wobbly, and a sharp turn can make your wheel wobble loudly from one side to the other.

It’s important to check for movement by grabbing the top of the tire. If you grab the front or rear of the tire and it wobbles, it could indicate bad tie rod ends instead. The difference is that wheel bearings tend to wobble in any direction whereas tie rod ends do not.

Everybody rides differently. You may find that your grease doesn’t get contaminated very easily with your ride style so you can get away with greasing them twice a year. Or that silty creek could fill your bearings with crud every time you cross it. You won’t know unless you try greasing it and see what comes out.

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I ran across your post which happens to be right on time. I recently purchased a 2003 Polaris 700 and I noticed one of the tires wobbling during takeoff. I can push it from side to side easily. What’s your thoughts?

If you frequently ride in dust, sand, water, or mud, you’ll need to grease your bearings often to keep them running well. It’s almost worth greasing them every ride to clear out contaminates, but greasing them once a month is probably good enough. The point is: the more you clean out the gunk that gets into your grease, the better.

How long do wheel bearings last? How long can you drive on a bad wheel bearing? And how do you check your wheel bearings anyway? We’ll answer all these questions and more so you can get the upper hand on these little time bombs.

Finally, when you’re running in a straight line, do your wheels run true, or do they move from side to side? This one can be tough to catch because aggressive, dirty, or oddly-worn tires can all create the illusion of wobbliness.

When it comes time to replace your wheel bearings, look no further than SuperATV. We have the high-quality Polaris and Can-Am wheel bearings you need to keep everything in tip-top shape. Not only that, we also have Polaris and Can-Am wheel bearing greasers to match so you can grease them easily every time you need to.

Hey Frank, whatever it is, it’s not good. If you lift it off the ground and push it around, it should be painfully obvious what your issue is. If it wobbles in every direction, you need a new wheel bearing. If it’s a front wheel and only the front and rear edges wobble (so it doesn’t move when you push and pull on the top or bottom of the wheel), you need a new tie rod end. Make sure you make sure there’s no catastrophic failure with your suspension causing the wobble while you’re at it, but it’s almost certainly a wheel bearing or tie rod end issue.

Unless you like racking up bills replacing other parts like your bushings, ball joints, and tie rod ends, we recommend that you don’t wait! Since a bad bearing lets your wheel wobble, it’ll wear down all of your suspension components quickly. A shot bearing leads to premature wear in your bushings, ball joints, tie rod ends, and knuckle. If it’s bad enough, you can even get uneven tire wear. You’ll wish you never had a wallet after shelling out the dough to fix all that.

I recently purchased 4 of your bearings for my polaris general. They have approximately 40 hrs riding time on them and the right rear detonated yesterday. I’m sitting at Madawaska Ontario broke down on a trip with friends. I do preventive maintenance so things like this don’t happen. Not too happy with your bearings!

Thanks for the feedback I have similar problem with my pickup truck 1988f 150 have a clunky sounds and steering wheel shaking I have replaced everything thing under still have the sound when I go around curve but I haven’t checked the bearings on the the front wheel.rith now I am working on the front wheels.thanks again.

But sometimes good wheel bearings go bad, even if you’ve done everything right. Let’s talk about how to spot one right away.

The process is similar for rear wheel bearings, but radius rods tend to make it a little more confusing. Again, if it wobbles in any direction, it’s a wheel bearing. If it doesn’t, you’re probably just looking at a bad bushing in your radius rods.

UTV wheel bearings are sneaky little devils. They crap out on you when you’re not paying attention, and then they do their best to wreak your suspension. So today, we’re talking about when good bearings go bad.

First, they’re noisy. Do you hear a rumbling or loud humming coming from your wheels even when you’re driving in a straight line? That could mean your bearing is shot.