Heard all balls bearings were poor quality compared to OEM. Just wonderimg if its true? They're about a third the cost Is there a better brand out there? Ive only ever ordered OEM but dont rly wanna shell out 150 bucks..
Cant reply exactly to your answer, but you could always get the part number for the bearings and buy some nice SKF ones or something.
Bearings aren't created equal. Dave at Worldwide Bearings has good stuff (actually works with the OEMs).
i've been using All Balls on my bikes since 2009. wheel and steering head bearings have been great. i didnt have good luck with their fork seals.
they are cheaper and more convenient than ordering through an OEM. Not as good quality as a specific bearing supplier like World Wide posted above.
Www.bossbearings.com I've used them before, and they stock Japanese OEM like brands. Koyo, Nachi etc....pretty cheap. Bought a set for my gsxr think it was around $50 shipped.
AllBalls are typically cheap chinese manufactured bearings. Their kits are a set of "close enough" bearings, races and seals - in their opinion. If you buy bearings and seals for a K6/7 GSXR600/750 for example, and compare the OEM to the AllBalls kit, you'll find that the inside and outside diameters of the dust seals, and the height of the bearings/races, are different from OEM. I've seen many times where the dust seal or top seal on steering head bearing kits from AllBalls are not large enough outside diameter to even truly seal the assembly, and instead just rely on the triple top to do the job intended to be done by a true seal. I've talked directly to AllBalls and their answer is that it's "good enough". They substitute "close enough" parts in order to reduce inventory and carry less SKUs to support more applications. This is not even getting to the actual bearing "quality" issue itself. That may be good enough for you. They are not good enough for me. Sometime there's a reason why something is cheap. Because it should be.
pivot works is my go to for bearings... i was the nerd in high school who dreamed of ceramic bearings for his skateboard lol... always wanted to try ceramic wheel /transmission bearings on a race bike to see if i notice it.
I was sitting here reading this, like man I'm about to share this in the group message.. jk, it was you.
As others have said, find the OEM numbers and than order quality alternatives from one of the major bearing manufacturers (SKF, Timken, NSK, etc.). One other thing to note, is never order bearings off of Ebay or other non-secure supply chain channels. Unfortunately, a staggeringly high percentage of bearings purchased through non-authorized channels are counterfeit.
i've put AllBalls wheel bearings in 4 sets of K6/K7 GSXR wheels and never had an issue. they've also been in 2 of my frames and they held up better than OEM would have.
Anecdotal information. You have not the slightest idea of whether or not those bearings held up better than OEM would have. You have an opinion that they would have. Not a fact at all. Unless you had 4 frames used identically, and under the same - 2 having OEM and 2 having All Balls - it's just a completely unsubstantiated opinion. Nonetheless, anecdotal information. Not everyone who smokes gets cancer. Not everyone who drinks a lot gets liver disease. The facts are the facts. Factually All Balls uses approximate replacements that are made from various low cost country sourcing providers. Factually I even have the deltas and pics somewhere of where the seals are just plain improper seals, and they do not even cover the gap fully between bearing and race. I can honestly say that I've not experienced problems with their wheel bearings- primarily because due to my experience with their steering head bearings and the discussion I personally had with them, I'd never even think about using them again. Let me know the next time you get a kit from All Balls that has SKF or some other high quality bearing in the kit. All Balls manufactures exactly nothing. Zero. They simply buy cheap bearings and seals, and package them. They are certainly convenient, and can help if you have some sort of weird concoction that you're trying to figure out, but they do not manufacture a single bearing or race to my knowledge, and I've never seen or heard of them using one of the known high quality providers. And again - IMHO the fact that they play with sizing just plain pisses me off. Nobody should do that without disclosing it.
Being a field service technician for NSK...I will say that I would never run anything from all balls in my vehicles of any sort. Any bearing coming out of china is garbage. Period. Only use a tier 1 supplied bearing (NSK, SKF, FAG, TIMKEN, KOYO, NTN, etc).
