How have your replacement wheel bearing hubs lasted?

I see a lot of post on here about wheel bearing hub replacement, and brand loyalties. Experience tells me OEM lasts me on average 10 years or 150,000 miles based on my last 3 Prius’. One of my cars had Timkin as a replacement and all is good after 50,000 miles on them but I don’t have experience beyond that. Have any of you had your replacements fail, and if so what brand and how many miles? If no failure, what brand and how many miles have you gotten out of them so far? I’m considering TRQ for $65 each and a lifetime warranty with feedback that they last roughly 15 months approximately, with free replacement. My concern is I put about 40,000 miles a year on my car rather than 20,000 so I wonder if I’d only get 7 or 8 months out of them on average, and have the labor to do all over again. I’m hesitant to spend $260 or so each for OEM even knowing they often last 150,000 miles because I expect either a major failure of car replacement before another 150,000 miles. I know people like Tinken, and I have 50,000 miles on some of mine and seem to be a-ok so far, but believe they are made in China I’m curious how many miles people have on theirs. Just looking for your experience on how your replacements have fared. For me the labor factor isn’t too big a deal so I don’t want to spend too much more on Timkin if others haven’t gotten say 100,000 miles or so out of them. I have 2 to replace so I’d love to buy the quality OEM product, but I’m not wanting to spend the money on those right unless others have had really poor luck with Timkin or maybe TRQ. Not looking for opinions on brands, just looking for your experience so far with whatever brand you’ve used as replacements. Thanks for any feedback.

 

I was actually considering that. If they aren’t stuck on bad yet, replacement goes fast once you’ve done it before. My uncle used to have a car repair shop and cussed some products that lasted too long because they made his job harder.

 

It sounds like you’re implying that the OEM hub assemblies are Moog. I don’t believe this is the case. All mine have been have been stamped Koyo, the Japanese bearing manufacturer, which bought Timken I believe in 2009 or 2010. I haven’t looked at mine from my 2010, but assume they are Koyo also. If costs were the same I’d lean toward getting Koyo, with Timken my second choice since they may not be created equal but are at least owned by the same folks.

 

I’m leaning toward buying Timken again, since many Timken hub assemblies seem to have Koyo bearings these days, since Koyo has owned Timken for so long. Hoping to get the OEM quality of the Koyo’s at Timken prices.

 

I’ve personally never seen any evidence of Moog wheel hub assemblies on 2008-2015 Prius’, but I’ve only had three. Maybe a few got some due to a parts shortage, or maybe even an entire year but the hub assemblies Toyota Parts sells right now for 2010-2015 are not Moog. I have seen Japanese bearings in Korean assembled Moog hubs and I couldn’t say for sure if Moog uses Koyo bearings or makes their own in Japan. Moog is built in 16 countries so neither would surprise me.

Anyway, what I did find was Koyo bought Timken in 2009 and the hub sold as genuine toyota is identical to that sold by Timken. I don’t know if the bearings in the Timken are branded Koyo or Timken but being owned by the same company I imagine they may be the same even if one is stamped Koyo and the other Timken.

C2C3B3E8-C3AB-439A-B347-B5BFE0DDD3BC by brianw posted May 18, 2020 at 2:11 PM

4EA6D6C0-B213-448C-9083-8C03F8885B49 by brianw posted May 18, 2020 at 2:11 PM

F965739F-B43A-4F7E-B6DD-4AD8B26262BB by brianw posted May 18, 2020 at 2:11 PM

The first two pics are “Toyota” and Timken. Notice the identical “N” outside each stud, and the dull coloration of the studs. Identical. The third pic on the other hand is Moog. I see several differences in the Moog that don’t match the Toyota supplied hub. No “N” markings, shinier studs, coloration of the body of the hub between the mounting areas and a slightly different plastic mold used.

If the toyota parts aren’t Timken, and are instead Koyo, they may be identical anyway being made by the same company. I even ran across a post from a guy working for a place that supplies Koyo and Timken and he says they sell identical dies to each for at least whatever they’ve sold them. Having found all that, I’m just going to stick with buying Timken from rockauto for half the cost of genuine toyota, figuring they are likely identical and if not then Timken has a good reputation so worst case scenario the hub is the same (aside from maybe sourcing the raw metals from different countries) and possibly the bearings used in the hubs might not be exactly the same. When I order the Timken I will post if the bearings themselves are stamped Koyo or Timken, but when i bought Timken for my 2009 Prius the bearings themselves were stamped Koyo, so hoping for the same.