Wheel Bearing Replacement

Most of my driving is highway and paved roads. I rarely ever tow anything and only carry about 400lbs of rescue gear in the back . On occasion I get off road to get into a remote area but even then we’re not talking rock crawling or anything severe. I am hitting 180,000 kms on my 2017 TRD Sport. On my next service I’m starting to think it’s time to be proactive and just have the wheel bearings on the front at least replaced. I’m not seeing signs that I can tell if any that are going yet. Then again it’s been so long since I’ve ever had to change wheel bearings on a vehicle I don’t think I would recognize when they have to be either. I’m a proactive type person vs waiting for a problem to happen. Is my
Mileage and usage high enough this is something to consider adding to a service maybe mid / late winter ? Or are the Tacoma wheel bearings going to last me a whole lot longer and I’m worrying about it too early .

 

The 3rd gen uses the same setup as the 2nd gen.
I see them fail in the 100-150k mile range. Or about 200,000-250,000 km

 

Thanks for the Info. I'll take a look into getting them to maybe do the front wheel bearings at least and take a close look at the ones in the back Next spring. I should be a little over 200,000km by then.

 

The ones in the back are the not an easy job.
I'd personally wait until they start making a noise.
Doing it yourself, you are looking at 2.5-3 hrs per side. and that's if you have a press and the right tools.
Paying a shop, you are looking at $1,200+ to do the rears.

 

Wheel bearing failure is hit or miss.
I have had one wheel bearing failure on a Tundra rear axle and that was it for the entire truck. I also replaced wheel bearings due to excessive water contamination on a 1998 Tacoma.
OP
Keep an eye out for a leaking oil wheel seal at the axle and listen for signs or wheel bearing failure. Also raise the wheel off of the ground and check for excessive play in the wheel bearing. If no leak and no wheel bearing sound then there should not be a reason to change them.

 

It’s a rather easy install if you buy complete hubs. When I have replaced them, the cheap ones from places like RockAuto were found to be sub par. Returned and reordered OEM hubs