Autozone Value Craft Wheel Bearing Destroyed in 4 months AGAIN!

[salsa3651]

Sorry raga for your issue but thanks for the reviews on wheel bearings! Very helpful since my tires are about to fall off (and not in a good way, haha!)...

Are there other brands from other sites/stores that you would recommend or is it just Timkens?

 

[rookieshooter]

Here are SKF bearings from Napa which I found out are equal to Timken. These are Napa's top line bearing.

Here's an interesting link about Timken and SKF.
http://www.bobistheoilguy.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=2065292

Interesting to note that one bearing was made in Germany while the other in Mexico but same name.
Seems that you can't get away from Mexico parts anymore.
And looks like Timken might even be outsourced.

 

[Joe Dirt]

UPDATE: still waiting to hear from the shop... I still may not get my truck back til Monday - which means yet ANOTHER day I cannot work. This is turning out to be a real costly can of worms - possibly a can of worms that may be jeopardizing my job.

That sucks raga- seriously. Hindsight is 20/20, but yeah- it's a matter of weighing the idea of spending $50 more to save hundreds or thousands. It's like stepping over a dollar to pick up a nickel. Sometimes it works out, but seems like more often than not, it doesn't work out well at all. Hope all ends well...

 

[ragajungle]

Update: Good News

Thanks Rookie, I am gonna def read up on it!
Same PN for each bearing, but different source? hmmmm...

Thanks Joe - cutting corners is why there are so many recalls and recalls occur because people died. Cutting Corners with a vehicle should never occur...

GOOD NEWS! Well I got back in my truck this morning.
Timkens (Inner and Outter)$50
Timken Seal installed $15
Towing $100
Labor$85
Updating my AAA membership $Priceless

Unfortunately the spindle is scored so I am looking at premie failure again... So I will more than likely be throwing an entire dana 35 on it (cheaper than buying a new spindle for the dana 28 currently under the truck... which means I will also finally be putting on the rest of my lift kit:


:exporange:roll::exporange:roll::exporange:roll::exporange
Important Question for those versed in the Ford TTB:
I have been packing these bearings since I was a punk...I have always done :

>20ftlbs (While turning rotor)
>Back off a quarter turn
>20inlbs


Thanks,
Mike
never had an issue till now... What specs y'all using?

 

[Joe Dirt]

Glad you got 'er all back together Mike!

I think my issue with parts isn't even necessarily the cutting corners part, because even 5 years ago you could buy some less expensive parts and get a decent run on them before you had to replace them. They were good stop-gap solutions. The problem is that some companies are selling such crap, that people are buying parts that they think are probably decent and will last a reasonable amount of time but instead they last weeks. That's the ridiculous part to me. Those manufacturers suck!

 

[ragajungle]

I am (or was) over on TCCA (Taurus Car Club of America) and folks were saying the doorman Cam Synchronizers for the Taurus' 3.0L were utter CRAP... Literally twisting off and breaking off in the motor, or spewing oil causing people to seize engines... Also a Chinese Auto Zone Supplier...

The scary part about all this "globalization" is that is is yielding crap products...



My sister is a fabricator and metallurgist of 20+ years and the first people to get **** canned are the metallurgists. Next the trade gets shipped off shore and is being produced with the wrond metals - weaker alloys, less nickle cadnium and the effect of this are GM having tierods failing with less than 10K miles, Hondas snapping Ball joints at highway speeds and Value Craft WB's seizing with less than 10K miles on them....

This isn't a brand specific issue it is EVERYWHERE. If you have the opportunity to buy N. American products I would. You pay more but are paying for QC, R&D, and dinner on your neighbors table.

When you buy cheap foreign parts you are buying cutthroat mimicry.

 

[janderson4010]

the mexico bearing part number is br35 and the mexico part is br37

 

[janderson4010]

o inner and outer bearing... im tarded

 

[WNYBroncoBill]

I'm not sure which "offshore" company/country is to blame. I went through this with front hub/bearings on my wife's Blazer. A GM O/E part was $290, a NAPA "Lifetime" part was $205, a NAPA non-lifetime was $127. Luckily I purchased the "Lifetime" product. They have repaced the RF bearing twice in 40K miles. Some are made in Mexico, some in Korea and some in China.

The one that is installed now is the one from Korea. The failed one was from China.

This whole problem is quality control, if you owned a factory in Mexico, China or Korea, you would have the intellectual knowledge, equipment and drawings to make the part. You would have willing workers (just off the farm/rice paddy looking for a better life), but you would need to train them, incent them to do the best, and quality control everything that comes out the "back door".

At the end of the day, how much does the supplier (NAPA, AutoZone, Advanced) have to say how it is made. They may have standards as to failures and buying from certain vendors again, but everytime one of these things occurs, their reputation is tarnished.

In my experience - everyone is cutting corners for profit, so we end up with what we get.

Stepping off of "soap box" now.

Regards,

Bill

 

[janderson4010]

so funnily enough it came time to change the wheel bearings in the rear of my wifes subaru. needless to say i found a timken unit online and was not even tempted to buy the autozone piecer

 

[ragajungle]

Prolly a good move. I am seriously considering strictly OEM now... but I am sure even that will eventually all be made in Singapore too... I might do like the Dad on Apocolypse PA and just start making my own ****

 

[janderson4010]

haha yeah really. i caught the tail end of that show the other day, making his own moonshine. it looked really terrible, id prob take singapore bearings over Jon Anderson brand haha

 

[rookieshooter]

I have used Timken for more years that I can remember.
I would love to hear from one of their Reps as to, where are they made, and the most important question. Has any corners been cut to lessen the quality of your product (like they would really tell us) and has Quality control been jeopardized by the state of the economy?
It is so easy for any company to rest on it's Laurels and then to back off on quality once the market has been achieved.

But the Best we can do is so easy...just keep doing that simple test trying to shake tire.
I do like the fact that you guys are posting how long these bearings are lasting.
With that said, make sure that your locking lugs are not backing off also.

This thread could easily save someone or sombody elses life.

 

[dhkmom48]

I work at a mom and pop auto parts store and I try to explain the differences in parts to the customers but unfortunatly price is the deciding factor with 75% of our customers.

The larger stores run into this as well and keep overhead down by only stocking what the masses want, cheap parts.

 

[rookieshooter]

Good point. I guess it's whatever the Market will bear.

 

[ragajungle]

I feel that if more people knew the potential outcome of using inferior parts they would spend the extra $.. But who am I to say because I did it myself

 

[janderson4010]

i walked into an autozone with a member of this forum(who will not be named) looking for an oil filter not a week ago, he wanted me to purchase a rebuild kit for my wifes brake calipers. i told him dude i don't really buy parts from autozone, after saying that in front of the guy running the counter i felt guilty about being an ####### and checked his price... gd it he didn't even have one. bought one from my buddy who manages Oreilly auto a day later. i just have never felt like autozone has sold good parts, then again neither does Oreilly haha