The only bearing problems I've ever had were on a small pop-up trailer proximally 25 years ago when we were five hours away from home traveling through downtown Rochester, New York.

I am wondering whether this type of task would be better handled by a reputable automotive service center? Unfortunately I feel many RV style service shops seem to lack the type of good service people willing to take on this task and ensure it is done thoroughly.

When you're used to doing this stuff yourself, and then you are unable, is a very difficult process to sit back and watch. I will now be looking for a reputable shop to handle this task for me, and allow me to be close at hand to watch the process. Since I am now on the recovery side of the major automobile accident, I am no longer able to be down on the ground doing this kind of work. This gives me an opportunity to look at the seals and replace them, and also to repack the bearings. I have always been of the thinking, that I like to look at the bearings once a year for a good inspection. Thank You for all of the good advice, thus far. This is what I taught and did for 40 years and I have never had a bearing failure. 003 may create to much side pressure and speed up the wear process. 001 may create to much heat and more than. Correctly pre-load and adjust your bearing clearance. Packing it full is not necessary since it will just stay there until you remove it the next time. Line the hub with a 1/4 inch layer of lube as a moisture barrier. When repacking use the best bearing grease you can get. Inspect the bearings and grease on the bearings, annually if you believe you need to. You have to inspect the grease to look for metal flakes which is a sign of metal fatigue and certain bearing failure. Looking at grease that's not on the bearings tells you almost nothing unless it's overheated and running out. What is put on the bearing at the time of packing is what you get. Keep in mind that the bearing grease does not flow like oil. Here's what I do and I taught this for 35 years. If the grease lasted on our trucks for 35K miles then changing it yearly won't prevent bearing failure if it's overloaded. If in fact they don't, packing them every year is not going to prevent an overloaded system from failing. The manufacturer should take this into consideration and put larger bearings on TT's that can carry more weight. Yes TT's may be bearing a greater load than say a truck. So why do a TT every year? Boat trailers are immersed in water every summer so they should be inspected and repacked. Our cars, trucks only needed repacking every 30-40K miles.

Much truth has been stated concerning bearing packing.

Repack trailer bearing