Moog bearing hubs are what, $100 each? you can get a PAIR of "FKG UK" bearings straight from Zhejiang China via Amazon Prime for $65 shipped. I'm going to install them next Saturday and report how it goes. Hell Timken, SKF, and even MOOG manufacture a lot of their bearings in China so why bother.

 

In my opinion, you get what you pay for. Personally, I will not buy anything that I know for a fact is made in China. But that's me, an extremely biased military veteran.

 

The top bearing manufactures in the world are outside the USA. Even the USA brands manufacture all over the world. Kaydon makes bearings for the US military. They have plants in the USA, Mexico, Brazil, and China. Taiwan is killing it in so many industries. Politically we might not like it but I think as far as this part of the forum is concerned, lets not sleep on foreign parts.

In regards to things like bearings you might get a fuzzy warm feeling by buying a US made part but let me tell you it's not 1950 anymore. I pull jeeps apart every day at work and I've touched every brand, American or otherwise. Even some of my best Snap-On tools are Taiwanese. I'm starting to learn that country of origin does not matter one bit as far as quality is concerned. The Chinese are willing and able to make anything we ask to our specifications. If Autozone USA wants cheap crap parts then the Chinese will make cheap crap for them.

All that being said, i'll report back on how these things hold up.

 

At the risk of getting technical here, most people referring to "China" seem to be referring to the mainland People's Republic of China.

Taiwan is the better managed, way freer US ally that we are supposed to pretend doesn't exist, the Republic of China. They make good stuff, all by themselves, without a hall monitor.

Looked on Rock Auto just now for a 1996 XJ, the most expensive wheel hub/bearing assembly is $80 (MOOG). For some reason a while back I decided on SKF for some reason when the time comes, since my factory ones have 360,000 miles.
https://www.rockauto.com/en/catalog/...ing+&+hub,1636

 

That's amazing. I'd be happy with 100k!

 

I just got Timkens off Rockauto, they were $65 each so pretty much twice the cost of what you bought. Timkens were made in S Korea.

 

I got a set of cheap hubs for a Ford Focus one, and they were both bad within a year. Went Timken the next time for twice the money and they were still good when I sold it.

 

It has been found by XJ owners in Australia that the cheap Chinese Ebay unit bearings are garbage and fail very soon

Timken is what nearly everyone recommends, and orders from Rock Auto

 

South Korea makes good stuff too.