how long do your gears stay smooth?

[jackor]

I use mostly 100-300 size baitcasters, from just about any company, from all price ranges ($100-550) and it seems gears go after just a few outings.    After just a few days of all day lure casting, i can feel a brand new reel deteriorating.   For some reels, i know it's not my imagination because i'll buy 2 or 3 at once where i can do my comparisons.   At first, i thought i wasn't using a suitable grease so i went through several reel lube/grease combinations, but all have had similar results.  

So far as i can see, any reel i buy for lure casting has a 1 summer lifespan on the drive and pinion gear.   Is this what most people get from their reels?   If i fish a full day of lure casting, i can actually feel the difference at the end of the day.  Every few days I'll do a full breakdown, relube, and put it back togehter with no major improvement until a new drive and pinion gear are put in.  I'm actually finding it quite frustrating especially when i read ads for reels that say i'll get "many years of enjoyment" out of a product.
 

wanted to add that that my latest attempt to extend gear life and smooth out old ones is applying a coat of an industrial dry lube called "everlube" and "everslick"   .   I don't know how long it'll last but the idea came to me after i read that one brand, quantum i think, was shipping reels with that on it.   so far i've done 2 reels, a curado DHSV201 and a citica 201E.   I'd be surprised if this experiment goes anywhere but it gives me something to try.

[alantani]

typically you have a stainless steel pinion gear tooth up against a manganese bronze alloy main gear tooth.  bronze always loses. the reason they use this softer metal is because it's quieter.  the down side is that it fails over time.  the more you crank and the heavier the drag, the faster the gear teeth deform. 

if you use stainless for both, the gears rattle like crazy.  the noise will wake the dead!  like so many things, it's a trade off........   

[jackor]

Yeah, i think just about all my drive gears are some sort of bronze with the exception of a few which are aluminum.    To the naked eye, they don't look all that worn out.  They only look a little polished.

I've been using grease for gears and oil for bearings but sometimes i wonder how well the grease stays on the teeth because it sure looks like it's all squeezed out when i open them up.  this is where I think an oil at least has a chance of flowing back down the gear.   Oh well.   I suppose the only solution is to buy several sets replacement parts for all the favorite reels and keep them on hand.  ...which is the reason i started buying the "cheaper" reels in pairs -- one reel becomes a parts doner

thanks for the input.  I guess that's the way it'll be for me.  BTW, i do pull some pretty heavy lures.  I'm not doing any big swim baits but some of the spinners and plugs i cast have a good amount of resistance in the water.

[alantani]

when the gears start to shred, always replace the main and pinion gears as a set, never just one.