edit: wheel hub bearing (front)

Bummed out that I overpaid for brand name. It was either SKF or NSK so I flipped a coin. If I wanted a China bearing, I could've paid a quarter of the price and gotten one.

So, what's been your experience with Made in China SKF's for the R53/2/6/etc..?

 

I think most all bearing manufactures have some manufacturing facilitys overseas now. I just bought a really expensive Timken bearing hub for my truck. The bearings said Timken on them, and also "Make in Korea".

If it's an SKF....I woudkn't worry about it, they make good stuff.

 

I got the Febi ones and they were made in the UK, they have been fine for me. As long as you get Febi, Meyle, NTN, NSK , SKF i think you are fine as they are a tier 1 supplier. I replace them in pair if you do and watch that end of year split on the Gen 1 MINIs. Watch the wheel speed sensors so you dont bump and crack them, clean the gunk off while you are there.

https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...ent-fault.html

 

China will make what you pay them to make. Crap in = crap out. More than likely the tolerances are much finer and the materials are better quality on the SFK part despite them being made in China

 

^^ what he said!

The quality control procedures will be much more stringent with a name brand.

Less likely to get a defective pc.

 

I just installed Detroit Axle wheel hubs in all 4 corners. A lot cheaper than OEM and so far so good. At that price and for how easy they are to install I can replace them of necessary. If I were having a mechanic install I may spend more on my bearings.

 

Frankly, I tend to run thick spacers and drive cars pretty hard on the unpopulated back roads. Wheel bearings fail decently often, and axles even more frequently. I've always just bought the cheap Advance Auto ones with lifetime warranty and just swap them out each time. Buy two sets to skip the downtime.

Euro cars, not Mini exactly, but all the same MFGs apply.

 

I'm more worried about knock offs at this point in time. I reckon a China bearing will probably last 60k miles now a days. I'm old enough to have been burned by Chinese components so have my bias. I did manage to find some Febis stamped "Germany" yesterday. It's too late now and don't want to deal w/returning them, but for anyone interested, it's a banging deal:

FWIW, the bearing carrier on these SKF's are forged, the hub seem to be stainless and are laser etched SKF on the face.

 

Watch amazon as they are flooded with knock offs. We are direct with vendors and they are finding their names on items they don't sell in the aftermarket.

 

That link seems to be the official Amazon shop for Febi Bilstein.

 

Still, have to watch as they can get fakes from other suppliers that sell to them. We work directly with Febi and many others and have to inform companies like them from time to time when we see products way too underpriced to be their products. Or someone will posts up a box or the part and I have seen them before (or installed them myself) and the stampings/finish looks way off. I think the market is getting flooded with fakes on Amazon.

Just be careful when ordering from those places, I know my stock is correct.

 

Install went smoothly minus some rusty hardware. Bearings came w/o hub bolts so ordering some from dealership. Sprayed some clear coat to keep them "clean".

 

Thats good I put some anti seize on the bolts going into the back of the hub so if i have to take it off again it will not seize up. The hardware can get really beat from the salt in the northeast here.

 

I got NSK from a high volume seller on eBay. Good prices, but not impossible good ($120 per bearing or something?). I figured the high volume helps lower the odds of somebody from scamming NSK boxes and putting cheaper bearings in them. I did find it a little odd that for the back two hubs, one of the NSK boxes was a different size than the other, but everything else looked legit, and the two bearings looked like each other, and looked well made. NSK makes a lot of good motorcycle bearings, so I went with them, but quality you can trust is getting hard to find these days.

I did make one mistake ordering, apparently there was a mid model change on the bearing. Mine (2005 R53) was the older one, which used smaller wheel lug bolts. The newer ones used larger wheel lug bolts. That cost me $39 in 8 new lugs at the local Orielly's (they had them on the shelf, but didn't know how to search for them, but they let me go back and find them). So that was annoying and it was a mistake I should have avoided, but I've had worse disasters than a 5 mile drive and $39 to recover. The wheel holes are plenty big for the larger lugs, so it's a bolt on swap. My mistake ordering, if I read more closely in the auction listing they actually call out that those bearings were post a particular manufacture date. [/size]

So now I have 8 extra bolts for the front wheel in the "big box of extra mini parts". If you find yourself near Kings Island in Ohio missing one, drop me a note and I'll hook you up.

The rear hubs were a bit of a PITA to get at all those hub bolts, though some of that may have been because a previous owner lowered this car. Nothing impossible, just annoying. You will have everything apart to replace the brake pads while you are doing this, so if you can time those two jobs to line up, you will save yourself a lot of rework. At about 130k on my 2005 R53 that has lived it's life in Pittsburg and Cincinnati, and that gets driven fairly gently, two of the four bearings (one front one back) failed. The front one came all the way apart and chewed up the ABS sensor, I replaced the back one when it got a metal sounding howl before it chewed up another sensor. So I'd say if you need the rear breaks done any time after 100k miles, if you still have original hubs, you might as well do both jobs together.

You will need one of the rotating brake piston compressor tools for the rear calipers. It can be done with a c-clamp and a punch and a lot of incredibly annoying putzing about, but it isn't worth it with the tools getting cheap and readily available.