After loading up the trailer with hay we pulled forward and the truck started making an awful screeching noise from the front passenger side wheel well area. The noise continued even after disconnecting our trailer. A friend and former heavy duty mechanic took the tire off and had a look. After removing the wheel/hub assembly he found that the ball bearings had almost completely seized. Had this happened a few minutes later we likely would have lost complete control of the vehicle while travelling down a narrow mountain road alongside a cliff. We purchased a new wheel/hub assembly at the parts store and got our friend to put it in for us. Parts and his labour was about $400 CAD but at a mechanic shop you'd likely be looking at closer to $700 CAD. To boot, this happened the day before we were trading the truck in to a dealership due to the shear number of repairs we've had to put into this truck.