Has anyone had luck with non-Koyo branded front wheel bearings? I've seen someone mention trying out Timken, but when the outer is nearly $40 alone, you might as well buy the full OEM set from Mazdatrix or another vendor. Centric, National, etc. offer outers for circa $10, but the difference in price leads me to believe they're an inferior option. Experience and opinions are welcomed.

 

Is your tire just a tad wobbly while on jacks?

I recommend popping the old bearings out and packing them plum full of grease and see if that fixes your problem.

My front wheels would rock back and forth when I was doing an alignment but just pulling them out and cramming them with grease fixed the issue. As long as you dont have visible brinnel marks on the bearing races you should be good just repacking them.

 

I've replaced them before, improperly. I didn't change the races and also I didn't set and torque them properly. So now they're acting up again and I want to redo them properly. You live and you learn, right?

 

I have timken bearings and they are not 40$. They were like 12$ when i got them, 4 months agao

 

Do you have your part numbers and where you got them for reference? The inners are $5.76, the outers are listed at $37.89, via RockAuto.

 

I got them from autozone, sorry no part number

 

I never updated my own thread, but the Centric premium bearings are actually manufactured by Koyo, which is the OEM bearing supplier. I cannot say without doubt they are "EXACTLY" the OEM part, but upon comparison they seem to be. So save yourself the money and go with the Centric premium for a fraction of the cost.

I have used OEM, Timken, and now the Centric premium, no qualms with any in terms of quality. I am no bearing expert so I will not comment, but merely mention that the Timken bearings are of visually different design.

 

Pics? I'd like to see the difference.

 

No pictures taken, I put these in last month. Sorry.

 

im curious what that torque spec on the front nut anyways?

 

Hand tight plus a **** hair.

It is very little. I do it by feel with a little bitty ratchet.

 

I tighten with the socket by hand. If I'm feeling froggy I'll do the additional 1/16th turn with the ratchet. Just remember to torque set the bearing, then back off for final tightening.

 

This.

I tighten it down by hand, put the wheel back on and spin spin spin. I take the wheel back off and tighten it more with the socket, put wheel back on and spin spin spin. Take the wheel back off and then use the ratchet to just add a tad bit more. Put the wheel back on and spin spin spin, and it it starts spinning freely with no wobble, you're good to go.

By wobble, I mean being able to rock the wheel back and forth and up and down (if you can do that, it's too loose.)

 

centric doesn't often rebrand junk parts FYI. i have used them for various parts before and they have never let me down.


i typically run the nut down finger tight, tighten it with pliers about 10ft/lbs, back off the nut, tighten it by finger and then tighten it 1/8th turn to the next available crown pinhole.

 

used cheap stuff from oreillys, as i work there (employee discount... ridiculous discount). masterpro and havent had issues but i always tear my car apart and replace things on schedule. I do think the national brand they have is decent... i believe federal mogul makes them.

 

My car is a track car, I have used Timken with good results, as well as Koyo. I didn't know Centric Premium was Koyo as well, that is good news. I have used SKF with good results, just not on the RX7. I use Redline wheel bearing grease.

I tighten new front wheel bearings to 25 ft lbs and check them after a few heat cycles. They are always loose again. I have to do that 3 times before they stay tight at 25 ft lbs. If repacking used bearings I might have to retorque once, sometimes not at all.

I used to tighten fresh bearings to 20 ft lbs and they loosened up 5-6 times, so I settled on 25 ft lbs.

 

Thanks for the info. My front bearings on my DD truck loosen up every now and then too. I almost mistook it for a bad bearing