I have this fairly new reel (bought in Oct 2014) and have been very pleased with its performance. I opened it up to give a clean and lube as it started to get a bit noisy on cast and retrieve and am a little surprised to see the spool bearing on the detachable plate side discoloured. Initially I thought it was just dirt but vigorous rubbing with a cotton tip made no difference.

Anyway I cleaned it up and did several test casts and am happy the noise is gone but the question remains; has the bearing suffered some kind of damage. If so what could have caused it as I fear new bearings would suffer the same fate if the underlying cause isn't fixed.

Reel is a Shimano Aldebaran BFS XG. Thanks for all input.

I'd reckon as with any other bearing, if it rolls smoothly through full rotations, it is fine.

The real test is if it casts well.

The guys at Bungsamram fishing park BKK do a great service very cheap.

As post 2 says, if it sounds good now it should be ok. I don't think discoloured bearings is an issue if there is no gunk on them.

I'll continue to use it and see how it goes. As for now it casts just as well as when I first got it.