It's like many trends in the automotive industry, "made to outlast the warranty and then some", but not made to be serviced for those who want a lot longer than that.
What typically happens on these sealed bearing is eventually the seal fails. My crystal ball can't tell you when your specific vehicle's seals will fail, but eventually, the grease will harden and if the seals are shot, depends on the hub design whether you can just pump more grease in and fix that. Inner seals maybe if you can flood the cavity in the hub and there's no ABS sensor issue, but outer seal, it'll just leak out again so a short term stop-gap measure.
I realize *certain* OEM parts including hubs are outrageously priced for what they are, but there is plenty of aftermarket, major brand support for american pickup trucks so in this case, I don't think it is worth the bother to think about, let alone do anything until the day comes that it fails and then you slap a new ~$120 hub on. If you're keeping a vehicle that long, it's a small price to pay relative to a newer vehicle monthly payment or even depreciation.
I'd feel differently if this was a $1000+ repair, but it's not if you DIY and you really have to DIY to make the most economical sense out of keeping a vehicle past the point where the factory hubs fail. Unless you have a shed-ton of potholes and then all bets are off, road condition means a lot about how your suspension and bearings hold up. I Happen to have a lot of potholes and badly repaired roads, so it's just par for the course that truck/suv hubs get replaced every 15 years or 200K mi, give or take 25%. It's a small price to pay over that use.
Drill holes? Umm no. I'd sooner pull the hub off and use a grease injection needle if I couldn't pull the seal out, before I went that route.
What typically happens on these sealed bearing is eventually the seal fails. My crystal ball can't tell you when your specific vehicle's seals will fail, but eventually, the grease will harden and if the seals are shot, depends on the hub design whether you can just pump more grease in and fix that. Inner seals maybe if you can flood the cavity in the hub and there's no ABS sensor issue, but outer seal, it'll just leak out again so a short term stop-gap measure.
I realize *certain* OEM parts including hubs are outrageously priced for what they are, but there is plenty of aftermarket, major brand support for american pickup trucks so in this case, I don't think it is worth the bother to think about, let alone do anything until the day comes that it fails and then you slap a new ~$120 hub on. If you're keeping a vehicle that long, it's a small price to pay relative to a newer vehicle monthly payment or even depreciation.
I'd feel differently if this was a $1000+ repair, but it's not if you DIY and you really have to DIY to make the most economical sense out of keeping a vehicle past the point where the factory hubs fail. Unless you have a shed-ton of potholes and then all bets are off, road condition means a lot about how your suspension and bearings hold up. I Happen to have a lot of potholes and badly repaired roads, so it's just par for the course that truck/suv hubs get replaced every 15 years or 200K mi, give or take 25%. It's a small price to pay over that use.
Drill holes? Umm no. I'd sooner pull the hub off and use a grease injection needle if I couldn't pull the seal out, before I went that route.