Originally Posted by
Navydad
In over 40 years of playing with motorcycles I have never replaced a wheel bearing and several of my bikes had over 100,000 miles on them. I know the rear wheel on the Spyder takes a beating and the loads are different than a two wheeler, but after working with bearings in an industrial environment I also know there should be no need to worry about the rear bearings. Obviously one place Can Am chose to save a buck during production was wheel bearings. There are several quality "levels" of the same size bearing and motorcycle wheels use pretty much the lowest one. If I'm going to replace mine I will take them to a store where they sell industrial bearings and seals and get the highest quality item I can and probably still pay less than a dealer will charge for crap bearings. It doesn't matter whose name is on the bearing as all manufacturers make different precision levels of bearings. 99% of bearing failures begin at installation. A hammer, punch, and a wooden block are not proper tools for bearing installation. Motorcycle wheels actually turn very low RPM's and if our Spyders need new bearings at every tire change that to me is a design flaw.