Is this normal? About to strip and regrease. Any alternatives?
Wally.

Mine did this a couple weeks ago and I asked the same question.
I just took the shields off, sprayed in wd40 and then used an air compressor to clean it out and dry it. Repack with grease and fit shields. Took 5 minutes and now it’s perfect.

Yes it’s normal- they use bearings rather than the trouble free bushes Shimano use.

And +1 for remove seals, soak in WD40/GT85 and once it’s freed up pack with grease.

Had the same issue with them, just changed them for the absolute black jockey wheels,much better quality

Thanks all, cleaned with gt85, compressor cleaned and repacked with Silkoline RP2. They were just full of mud. Bearings came up nice.

trouble free bushes Shimano use

not own a recent xtr mech then ? a really bizarre micro bearing set up real pain to keep running freely swapped over to some old xt now much better.