Bad Timken Hub Asembly?

[Rocket Man]

It's because Amazon's system is setup so that each product has a single SKU, and they don't care who makes the product that has the SKU. So, there could be 10 companies that make the part, and they are all assigned the same SKU. When you order the part, they guy in the warehouse (or robot) picks from a big basket that includes everything with that SKU, so you can get something that varies tremendously in place of origin --> quality.

Also, alerting Timkin may not even have a positive effect. I pointed out through a detailed email with pictures and all sorts of info, that they were assigning the same part number for the 2004 TA60 (Pathfinder) Armada and 2004 R50 Pathfinder front hub assemblies.
The Pathfinder uses individual spindles/bearings, while the Armada uses a one-piece hub assembly. They never got back to me, and continue to incorrectly label their parts.

The issue that you need to watch on Amazon is the third party sellers. Amazon themselves are highly reputable and they ensure what they sell is genuine. But they have a hard time keeping up with verifying the third party sellers merch, which is 70% of what’s sold through Amazon. They scam Amazon just like they scam us. Read the reviews and it’s fairly easy to avoid the fake stuff.

 

[gmartin1215]

The issue that you need to watch on Amazon is the third party sellers. Amazon themselves are highly reputable and they ensure what they sell is genuine. But they have a hard time keeping up with verifying the third party sellers merch, which is 70% of what’s sold through Amazon. They scam Amazon just like they scam us. Read the reviews and it’s fairly easy to avoid the fake stuff.

The parts I got that are pictured in my initial post are from Amazon, and not one of their third-party sellers. I was careful to make sure that I was getting it directly from Amazon. I have had orders that were directly from Amazon that I end up sending back because they were clearly used by someone else and they returned the item. Amazon is good about throwing stuff back in the bins after they receive a return.

 

[wsteele]

The parts I got that are pictured in my initial post are from Amazon, and not one of their third-party sellers. I was careful to make sure that I was getting it directly from Amazon. I have had orders that were directly from Amazon that I end up sending back because they were clearly used by someone else and they returned the item. Amazon is good about throwing stuff back in the bins after they receive a return.

I had that happen with some Lutron Duplex outlets. The ones I got were deinstalled and the push in wire connections just snipped off and stuffed into the Lutron boxes.

 

[Rocket Man]

The parts I got that are pictured in my initial post are from Amazon, and not one of their third-party sellers. I was careful to make sure that I was getting it directly from Amazon. I have had orders that were directly from Amazon that I end up sending back because they were clearly used by someone else and they returned the item. Amazon is good about throwing stuff back in the bins after they receive a return.

Weird, I am a huge Amazon buyer probably 3/4 of what I buy is from them and I’ve never had a single issue excepted some Levi’s that were clearly fake and that was one order where I didn’t take the time to notice it was a third party seller and read the reviews. I just searched Amazon for those hubs and all I found was from their warehouse, it said “used, very good condition” and the pictures look exactly like yours, with the discoloration which looks like it was heated up. Hmmm.

 

[thompsoj22]

Weird, I am a huge Amazon buyer probably 3/4 of what I buy is from them and I’ve never had a single issue excepted some Levi’s that were clearly fake and that was one order where I didn’t take the time to notice it was a third party seller and read the reviews. I just searched Amazon for those hubs and all I found was from their warehouse, it said “used, very good condition” and the pictures look exactly like yours, with the discoloration which looks like it was heated up. Hmmm.

Amazon is destroying American society, I buy from them too, Recently ordered a new guitar for our daughter and it was on our doorstep the next day? Spooky! How is any retailer supposed to compete with that? Bezos is buying Mars next week and will be selling made in china "mars rocks" on amazon soon.

 

[Hrocks]

GM uses these one piece sealed hubs on many cars/trucks. (BTW, NO difference between the GMC and Chevy truck bearings.) In contrast to the old tried/true roller bearings, these one piece units are ball bearing hubs made for quick OE assembly. I used to replace them regularly on my C4 Corvette track car. In any case, these used to all be made by a former GM division called "New Departure Hyatt Bearing Div." Before the proliferation of counterfeit parts, they used to private label them for Pep Boys and some others. You could tell that they were the real deal because in very tiny letters, they were stamped "NDH". The Pep Boys NDH bearings were guaranteed for life, so you know where all of the Corvette track racers bought their hub bearings.

BTW, the Chinese don't view counterfeiting parts, Luis Vuitton, Scotty Cameron, Titleist and many other proprietary as and stealing, just a business opportunity. They sickened and killed babies with counterfeit formula filled with melamine. (More than one attempt at using the the stuff used to make plastic dishes.) The hacked companies still like to know whenever people find out that there are counterfeits of whatever.