OK strange thing happened. I left my boat Saturday evening at a Marina as I was going out Sunday. So I was just towing my empty trailer. I got in my truck late and was towing it home. Now I had just reattached the trailer to the truck at that time. Drove about 30 miles at all highway speed (70 MPH). When I got home, one of my wheels/hub was missing from the trailer. The axle nut with cotter pin were still there as were the inner bearing races and a considerable about of grease (just had the axles all greased). There was no damage / scratches or marks anywhere on the trailer. During the drive home, there was not a sound or vibration or anything abnormal. This is the strangest thing I have seen. I am not even sure how this could happen. Anyone seen something like this before?

Driving to St.Clair Mi. mself. Front tire on a three axel gone. All of the studs were snaped off and the bearing buddy was gone. Never felt a thing and not a mark on the trailer.

I have seen an "over the road" tractor loose a drive axle and duels once and it looked like they didn't know either for about a mile.

My uneducated guess is your bearings failed or your outer bearing only. With the speed you were traveling the wheel/tire just left the axle on a vector (a straight line if you will) slightly off of the vector of the trailer. Probably around a curve.... trailer goes one way the wheel continues on the initial path. Your wheel became a gyro traveling on the same path until it hit something or just slowed down enough to tip over.

Just my thoughts and lets just hope it did not hit anyone.

Sorry you had to deal with this failure.

I had a similar issue once with a single axle trailer.... lucky we did not loose the wheel. Four of our six studs sheared right off and the hub was hot as hell.

We could never figure out how or why this happened. I was told it may have been from our lugs not being tightened properly. And on a side note... the trailer was brand new and was just in the shop for a leaking inner seal. SO WHO the HELL knows.

Thanks.. Don't know where the wheel assembly wound up. I travelled the same trek the next day and did not see it anywhere. Thing is though, not sure how a tapered roller bearing could disintegrate. I operate a mostly Porsche business with a lot of race cars. Never seen anything that failed in that fashion. Let alone have the whole assembly jettison without any damage to the axle, fender, etc. Oh well... New parts on order. Only $200 to fix an all new stuff... Could have been worse.

BINGO

We have a winner.

The bearings were either worn and failed, poor quality as in the Chinese junk you see in all new trailers today, or they were out of adjustment.

I would jack up each wheel on the trailer and inspect them very well. Make sure they spin freely without noise but are not loose. Grab the top of the tire with one hand and the bottom of the tire with the other hand with the and pull back and forth. There should be just a very slight amount of play like an 1/8 of an inch.

May thoughts are the castastrophic failure occurred inside the hub, hence, causing the failure of the retention. That is why you did not see any damage to the trailer. The wheel and tire for all it knew..... was still attached to the axle.

All it takes is a simple grain of sand to do a bearing assembly in. If you think about what we put our boat trailers through with the act of 'shock cooling' the hub assemblies with dirty/sandy water each and every time we launch it is amazing more of us do not deal with this problem on a daily basis.

I carry on of these guys around with me and every time we stop for fuel I check them to make sure the tires and hubs are running the same temp. http://www.griotsgarage.com/product/...thermometer.do If one is not doing so well the higher temp reading should be an indication of a possible failure in the near future.

The hub could have cracked open and left the retaining nut in place, but I bet it was outer bearing failure too.

I've lost two wheels while towing, one I was well aware of when it happened. (The whole 2 axle trailer shook and I watched it shoot into the woods beside me--later found out someone purposely loosened my lug nuts).

The 2nd time was on a triple axle trailer, towing in the middle of the night, and when I got to my destination, something looked funny in the rear view mirror, and I noticed a whole wheel was missing, somewhere along a 100 mile trip.

That is a bunch of crAAp! Some one could have died because a person though it was funny to F with your stuff.

In between jobs I drove 18 wheelers and someone thought it would be funny to unlock my 5th wheel. Lucky I caught it before pulling out. And shortly there after my trailer's brake line came off durning a trip... lost air and trailer braking.

This kind of thing pisses me off and I am glad no one was hurt.

Aren't 18 wheeler brakes on by default (due to the emergency brake setup) and the air pressure disengages them? Thought I saw that on "How its' made" when they were building the pots for the airbrakes. Just curious...