Are Timken brand wheel bearings still the preferred brand of wheel bearings? Are there any other brands that are considered high quality? Planning on a complete front end tear down and rebuild and that's an area that I'm ok with spending a little more on if the quality is there.

 

They're most all about the same, except for the cheeeeeeeeep offshore knockoffs. Pay more attention to country of origin and less to brand name on the box. Look for US, Japan, Germany, Canada; avoid India, Thailand, Malaysia, China, etc.

 

Yeah for sure staying away from the Valuecraft level of bearings, just want opinions before I buy the Timken set3 and set6 bearings.

 

They're fine. Assuming of course, no Thailand, Myanmar, Kazakhstan, Cambodia, etc. as COO.

Grease em every 20 or 25k miles, or every brake pad change. That also matters more than the name on the box.

 

I installed Timken in april... and was a bit offended by the outer bearing having a plastic cage... The inner was all metal... I had national bearings before and they were all metal. But I installed the Timken anyway, so far, so good. Works. Wheel bearings are cheap and you can swap them in a few minutes, so I decided not to avoid the plastic and live with it.

 

Just an FYI - pretty sure SET3 is a 1LE bearing. If you have non-1LE brakes you want SET6 and SET34.

 

Well aware thank you, I'm planning machining my standard hubs for the 1LE front bearing.