This paper presents some tribo-troubleshooting case studies of bearings and seals in actual machinery, proposing a new practical method to learn how to design and operate machinery free from tribo-troubles, based on unique analyses of these case studies. The analyses focus on the initiators that triggered the chain of events leading to the eventual problems, the various promoters that expedited the process and some human factors involved, rather than the direct causes of each case study. Understanding only the relation between direct cause and effect won’t suffice to prevent recurrence of the same tribo-troubles, but understanding the total process from the initiator to the final problem inclusive of promoters and human factors is much more important. Creating new databases consisting of similar case studies with the unique analyses incorporated will definitely contribute to giving birth to trouble-free tribo-design methodology.