No, it wasn't a lack of grease. I service all my hubs personally. I take the whole thing apart and coat everything liberally with red tacky grease. Had the generic coaster hubs, never fishtailed with them. The shimano hub is great, but the shoes do grab really hard because they are better made than the shoes in the generic hubs. Converting a coaster to freewheel is not tricky as long as you put the 3 washers to replace the clutch spring, it worked fine for me and all I did was look up a video on YouTube. And my personal opinion is that converting his hub to freewheel would be cheaper and less time consuming than buying and lacing in a new hub. Besides that, he can replace the coaster with a rim brake, which I also think is a better choice.