What's the verdict on low cost hubs/wheel bearings?

[TheBac]

And here I thought "Callahan Auto Parts" was a made-up company from a Chris Farley movie.

IMO, I wouldn't cheap out on wheel bearings. You end up spending twice the money and doing twice the work for the same mileage out of the low cost ones -- with a few exceptions.

 

[btfarm]

Amazon has Timkin front hub assemblies for $150.98. I think they're worth at least that. I've got 266k on the original one and 175k on the other. Both still tight like new

Sent from my SCH-I535

 

[Noreaster]

$135 @ Rockauto.com for Timkens

 

[swolford]

I think that you should grease any of the wheel bearing and hub assemblies that you have new or used. Even new, they have a minimal amount of grease. After a few failures from a lack of grease at 50,000 miles on the factory assemblies, I have been greasing mine on 4 different vehicles and haven't had a failure since. You can buy a wheel bearing greaser on e bay . It is nice to jack up the duramax and find that there is no slack.

 

[schulte]

I think that you should grease any of the wheel bearing and hub assemblies that you have new or used. Even new, they have a minimal amount of grease. After a few failures from a lack of grease at 50,000 miles on the factory assemblies, I have been greasing mine on 4 different vehicles and haven't had a failure since. You can buy a wheel bearing greaser on e bay . It is nice to jack up the duramax and find that there is no slack.

All you need is the rubber tip from a compressed air blowout gun; should be 1/8" NPT, same as most grease guns. Just put that on your grease gun and fill them through the ABS sensor hole.

FYI, I've never done this because I don't think it's worth it, and I've had bearings last for 150-200k/set.

 

[fajitatone]

I bought Timken for both sides around $130.00 each. no problems so far.

 

[c20elephant]

Low cost hubs with an ISO9001 certification built by someone in the back shop, slap a name on it, , but hey it is certified...

ISO 9001 certification of a fish
wholesaler in Tsukiji, Japan.
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ISO 9000 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


I pulled my rotors, calipers off and did pump some grease in the hubs and would like to know how much grease you guys pumped into your hubs?

 

[Al's max]

My 95 has 340,000 miles with the oem hubs still good. Guess I got lucky. Replaced four no name hubs on two duramaxs and had two fail. 50/50 I guess.

 

[swolford]

I usually pump 20 strokes from my grease gun. I have heard of people putting 50 or 60 pumps in them with no problems. I believe the only mistake one could make is if they had the greaser fitting tightly in the abs hole and pressured the seals with too much grease. The wheel bearing greaser that is available on ebay lifts out of the hole automatically if it encounters any pressure.


I pulled my rotors, calipers off and did pump some grease in the hubs and would like to know how much grease you guys pumped into your hubs?[/QUOTE]

 

[ALLY Fox]

I replaced my factory wheel bearings, one at ~70K & one at ~82K, I towed a heavy 5th wheel for about 25K miles of that. Went with Timkens, I don't relish the idea of having to replace front wheel bearings in a parking lot 2000 miles from home or having to pay Joe monkey mechanic $500 to slap one in so I try to put the odds in my favor. Guarantee doesn't promise they will never go bad again, but I'd rather not have to do it again soon.....

 

[swolford]

My 95 has 340,000 miles with the oem hubs still good. Guess I got lucky. Replaced four no name hubs on two duramaxs and had two fail. 50/50 I guess.

From the 90's up through 1998, the gm wheel bearings were bullet proof. We had several of those with high mileage and never had a failure. From 1999 on, they were junk. That is real progress for you to have a component that works great and change the design to result in low mileage failure. Front wheel bearing failure can be potentially really dangerous. I have had a couple people tell me that their front wheel bearing hubs separated all at once with no warning. This in turn caused braking action on the wheel which pulled the vehicle in that direction. On a narrow two lane road, that could mean a head on crash.

 

[MACKIN]

Low cost hubs with an ISO9001 certification built by someone in the back shop, slap a name on it, , but hey it is certified...

ISO 9001 certification of a fish
wholesaler in Tsukiji, Japan.
[URL="http://abuse.verticalscope.com/report/index.php?referrer=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dieselplace.com%2Fforum%2Fforum%2Fshowthread.php%3Ft%3D668761&imageurl=http%3A%2F%2Fupload.wikimedia.org%2Fwikipedia%2Fcommons%2Fthumb%2Fd%2Fd5%2FISO_9001_in_Tsukiji.jpg%2F220px-ISO_9001_in_Tsukiji.jpg"]Report this image[/URL]

ISO 9000 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


I pulled my rotors, calipers off and did pump some grease in the hubs and would like to know how much grease you guys pumped into your hubs?

Talk about the resurrection of a old thread!
ISO certification is a joke as your pointing out. Waste of money but your forced to participate.

 

[c20elephant]

The best hubs you will have had IMHO are the ones originally equipped when the truck rolled off the assembly line. I was on several website Timken, Spicer etc. for a day or more, reading between the lines a common statement jumped out and went something like this, "our products are manufactured worldwide". To me they no longer manufacture their own branded products and "subcontract" (for lack of a better word) the manufacturing to lesser quality shops overseas with inferior metals and tolerances with an ISO certification. Anymore it's a crap shoot no matter who you buy from and it is all price driven in the retail market in the US.

Now that the name brand companies have several manufacturers to produce their products via the certifications they can choose who will give the best price to "slap" their name on it.

 

[Max Attitude]

How or why do Timken's have a good reputation? Seems like they cost the most at the time so everyone thought they were best? Sounds like the price of them has come down quite a ways now though. I bought some from my local parts store for $220 each, lifetime warranty. I think they have come with different names on them on separate occasions. At least one was a MOOG. I've done 3 trucks and no issues with the replacements yet. I asked the dealership what they wanted for one when I did my first one years ago... $450 a side.

 

[c20elephant]

Name recognition and company history,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timken_Company

 

[swolford]

I think that the factory wheel bearings on the duramax were Timken. Some of them failed before 50,000 miles, so the factory bearings were nothing special. It would be interesting to know if anybody had their wheel bearings to fail after greasing them like mentioned earlier in the thread.

 

[swolford]

The part numbers for the wheel bearings that fit the duramax 2500's and 3500's up thru and including 2007 are as follows: The Timken bearing is sp580310, The skf bearing is br930416, The moog number is 515058. If you put "515058 bearing" in ebay, you will find several different aftermarket bearings for as low as $50 a piece.