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Recommendation For Greasing Boat Trailer Bearings - Regular or Marine Grease  

Published 02/11/2010

Question:

I work for the Louisiana Dept. of Environmental Quality. We have nine boats with trailers that we use regularly. Up until this point our boats havent been cared for adequately, but Ive been put in charge of it and Im trying to do things right. Weve had new hubs/bearings/seals put on all the trailers. My question is, how important is it to use the same grease at each greasing period? Ive heard some people say to use the exact same grease every time or you could have some issues. Ive heard others say that you should never mix marine grease with general purpose grease, but mixing different brands of marine grease wont hurt. Can you shed some light on this for me? And please explain why or why not it matters if you mix greases. Thank you for your time.

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Expert Reply:

Your statement (I have heard others say that you should never mix marine grease with general purpose grease, but mixing different brands of marine grease wont hurt.) sums up the way I have used grease all of my life. Being raised around all kinds of things that need grease, tractors, trailers, boat trailers, combines, planters, and a number of other miscellaneous pieces of equipment we used grease, a lot of it, because if the item had grease it lasted longer and we were not constantly working on it. The only rule we have ever stuck to was that any wet service item, such as boat trailer bearings, gets marine grease no matter the brand. If it has grease you definitely better off than if it does not because you did not have the right brand handy.

Technically marine grease has additives that make it hydrophobic (repels water). Standard grease is somewhat hydrophobic but not nearly as good as marine grease and standard grease will mix much more readily with water. You have seen the milky white substance left when a hub has had water contaminated grease in it. Marine grease is much more resistant to this mixing. It would not bother me nearly as much if i needed to use some marine grease in a dry application. I would go the extra mile to make sure there is marine grease in boat trailer bearings but the brand would be low on the list of priorities.

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Bob G
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