Bearing heat vs wheel offset

[lee16silverado]

I got to play with a thermal scope the other day, and I looked at about 15-20 trucks that had all just parked (we were at a dove hunt with a big group of people). The one truck that jumped out at me was a lifted 2015 Ford with some high offset wheels. The hub / bearings were glowing like crazy. My buddies truck is lifted and has a little offset (probably a +0) compared to factory and it was warmer than the stock trucks as well.

 

Has anyone else noticed this or had any problems with high offset wheels causing wheel bearing failure?

[DanMan_S]

I got to play with a thermal scope the other day, and I looked at about 15-20 trucks that had all just parked (we were at a dove hunt with a big group of people). The one truck that jumped out at me was a lifted 2015 Ford with some high offset wheels. The hub / bearings were glowing like crazy. My buddies truck is lifted and has a little offset (probably a +0) compared to factory and it was warmer than the stock trucks as well.

 

Has anyone else noticed this or had any problems with high offset wheels causing wheel bearing failure?

 

 

No experience from a truck perspective, but this was a concern when I used to road race my Z06. I was running wheel spacers in the rear so that I could play with the wheel widths, and as you move the wheel away from the mounting surface, you end up with more transverse loading of the bearing which results in more heat. Ideally, the center of the force/loading from the road should be as close as possible to the bearing. As the load gets further away, you're getting a larger lever arm on the bearing to keep all of the centres of rotation in line.

[Silvern Sentry]

Interesting but certainly not definitive.

 

I would imagine that braking is what increases the heat more so than anything. Really it would depend on the person driving and their speed and how much they were applying brakes. People with lifted trucks tend to drive aggressively I would imagine so also not surprising. Bigger/heavier tires would also mean more pressure must be applied to to stop the same force, more pressure equals more heat if I remember my high school science correctly.

[bdbake01]

Well known phenomenon. As DanMan said, the more you traverse load the bearing, the more heat and premature failure. This is the compromise you choose if you opt to depart from OEM design be it height, suspension, wheels, etc. Likely you will pick up some "performance" in some area(s) - possibly defined as simply ground clearance - but you'll inevitably be sacrificing something somewhere, and that something is most likely reliability.

 

Case in point. If these trucks were intended to ride on 30" rims, the brake rotors wouldn't be 12" dia.