Kingpin replacement frequency

Hi just to set my mind at rest, am I right to change a set of kingpin bearings every 12 to 14 months? I do about 1100 miles a month of mixed driving from daily green laning, a half a mile a day every day, to faster A road to broken up estate roads. I have only once done both sides at the same time normally it is 1 side then the other about 180deg out of phase. Is this normal? I if at all possible get bearings from Mr Lines of this parish as they are a great deal.

That seems very frequent. I have similar day-to-day usage and on my last Jimny I only changed the bearings once on one side in the 40,000 miles/3 years I had it. At what point do you consider them in need of changing? I am probably more tolerant of a bit of wheel wobble than most so left it until the swivel was wet with oil before changing.

My current Jimny needs one side doing. I'm contemplating fitting the cheapest bearings I can find just to see if they fair any worse. If it's water and dirt ingress that is killing them, I can't see why a £20 bearing would be any more resiliant to it than a £6 bearing.

No wobble at all. The swivel is a little damp and with the hub free to rotate there's a slight notched quality to the arc of movement. The one i am doing next is about 12 months old and if i weren't able to do them in my sleep i would wait till I could feel it in the steering. Thing is that i still think of the car as being new even though it is now 6 and a half years old so I want it to be as perfect as a new one for as long as possible. I know that sounds mad but you know what i mean.

I'm actually going to check mine tomorrow as it's been 2 years since I changed them.....no oil showing though.

It's started to develop a slight wobble so it's due a check.....they are easy enough to change so no reason not to keep them tip top.....

Sounds like you are being a bit premature with changing them to be honest. We all know they don't last forever and will need replacing at some point. However they fail slowly and in a way that won't cause damage to any other components, so you don't save anything by changing them the minute you notice a slight notchiness. I'd at least wait until you get a bit of steering wobble, or noticeable play in the whole swivel assembly. You might find that the notchiness doesn't get any worse for another 10,000 miles or so.

That may well be but unfortunately now that I know that it has started to fail it will pick at me like a picky thing that it isn't right and needs to be fixed. Its how my mind works. That and my Jimny has a hard enough life as it is so it deserves a good and comprehensive preventative maintenance program for the balance of things.