[eastbay]

You need to pop the seals off then clean and inspect the bearing, otherwise you are just looking at the outside of a box. All the action is on the inside.

PS IMHO most of the IMS issue is the quality of the bearing itself. I have read some were made in Brazil, mine was made in Poland and now yours was made in Japan (lucky, probably the best). Global low cost outsourcing has not been good at all for bearing quality.