Thread: Febest wheel bearings not lasting / early failure

From anecdotal evidence, cheap Chinese bearings aren’t worth it. The labour cost for reworking a job far exceeds the saving by using Chinese vs. Timken, etc.

Yeah, id guess its nothing new, but just wanted to mention this brand (febest) in a post so it might come up in google, as i feel they are trying to make a brand for themselves, by putting their name on every photo, when i think they are just selling generic unbranded product, and the likely deliberate similarity with the unrelated car part company febi

I fell into the trap pf buying a pair of Febest ball-joints thinking they were Febi. I fitted one for a short while even swapping the new Febest boot for the old one because the Febest boots are known to be rubbish, but the joint still didn't last long so I threw away the 2nd one.

Originally Posted by haydent

Yeah, id guess its nothing new, but just wanted to mention this brand (febest) in a post so it might come up in google, as i feel they are trying to make a brand for themselves, by putting their name on every photo, when i think they are just selling generic unbranded product, and the likely deliberate similarity with the unrelated car part company febi

A Google search comes up with the only 'positives' being fast shipping and low price.
Lots of negative reports regarding product quality..... plus one or two praising the quality, comments like "better than OEM" are intriguing.

Colin

The guy who runs the shop where we get our bearings for work from told me years ago,he wouldn't use Chinese bearings on a garage door,yet alone anywhere else.

We only use Japanese bearings,although just recently due to availability in a certain size we had to use Fag bearings,from a different supplier.
They were made in Europe.

A couple of years ago I was talking to the guys at KLR about bearings. They had a well known supplier send them Chinese bearings for their gearbox rebuilds but they sent them back. The cost of removing/reworking/refitting the gearbox under warranty if the Chinese bearings failed simply wasn’t worth it in terms of money and/or reputation.

I used to work next door to a Chinese bearing company (the Australian warehouse).
I spoke with a guy that worked there and asked whether he would use their bearings he said "wheel bearings or anywhere easy to get to....yes, a gearbox...categorically NO!
But he supplied me a bearing for our tumble dryer, 10 bearings cost $4.80 at the time (they didn't sell them individually). Never had a problem and the dryer carried on for years. Still have 9 bearings somewhere.

A few years ago I got prices for Timken wheel bearings for my Series III, from memory about $350 for the pair as one is an odd size and almost made-to-order. I'm using Indian/Chinese/no-name bearings without any issue but, to be fair, I don't do huge Kms. I have, where possible, salvaged old taper roller bearing by known suppliers
Later Series III or Defender Timken taper roller bearings are a reasonable price.

Most gearbox kits for Series vehicles have no-name bearings, possibly because some of the bearings are no longer available from known manufacturers so they are made to order probably in China or India.

'Chinese' doesn't automatically mean poor quality, all the big bearing manufacturers have factories in China.
Cheap Chinese is mostly a problem.


Colin

Originally Posted by scarry

The guy who runs the shop where we get our bearings for work from told me years ago,he wouldn't use Chinese bearings on a garage door,yet alone anywhere else.

We only use Japanese bearings,although just recently due to availability in a certain size we had to use Fag bearings,from a different supplier.
They were made in Europe.

FAG make very good quality bearings, I'd have no qualms at all using them. They seem to be the only supplier of some very unusual size ones we have needed over the years.