Do Lippert Never Fail Bushings Need to be Replaced and When to Inspect Trailer Suspension
Question:
Just looking for an opinion from you guys. I got the Lippert never fail bushings from you they been in one year. My suspension shop is telling me that they can tell if there’s wear in these bushings by play in the suspension and if it’s real bad I guess the holes would start to be elongated. I’m not having any problems at all. But, trailer life magazine for example says that you should do a teardown and inspection of your bushings every six months even if you’re not having any problems. That’s just ridiculous. So I was wondering if you feel they are correct and when they do an inspection they can tell if there something going wrong .how can they tell if something is wrong? Play in the suspension parts?how would you check for worn bushings? Do you recommend a tear down every 6 months to inspect? NO ONE is going to do that! It’s dangerous and expensive to have someone else do it and how do you really know unless you tap out the bushing and inspect it?
asked by: Roy V
Expert Reply:
The great thing about the Lippert Never Fail Bushings like # LC279685 is that the durable polyamide construction essentially eliminates the need to ever replace them. They are designed to simply never wear out to the point that the holes would be elongated. It's going to always provide a tight setup with the trailer suspension and its self-lubricating nature also keeps you from having to grease them up every now and then.
In general we recommend inspecting a trailer's suspension components every 12 months. While you won't necessarily need to do this for the Never Fail Bushings it's a good idea to check on other parts like the shackle straps and leaf springs at this time for anything that needs to be replaced.
Tearing everything down every 6 months is indeed a bit of a stretch. Unless you are actually noticing that something might be off with the suspension I don't see a need for this frequent of an inspection.
