So I'm replacing a rear wheel bearing on my 06x. I ordered a Timken bearing from Rockauto because I don't want to risk getting some fake **** off ebay. The box shows up and it's all shabby and dirty and the bag is already opened. The bearing has no markings on it whatsoever. All the product photos I see for Timken bearings show various engraving marks like NTN etc on the bearing. This one has nothing. Think it's fake? I wrote to Rockauto and we'll see what they say. Anybody else buy bearings from anybody but Nissan or Infiniti? How are you sure you get a legit part. This is enough of a pain that I don't want to do it again in a year because I got a fake.

 

I had the same experience as you. I ordered two Timken bearings, and one looked nothing like the others I had seen. I installed it and have had no issues yet.

 

Don't judge the book by it's cover.

Don't judge the part by it's box. Someone probably opened it to do a size check, and the box probably got roughed up sitting in the warehouse.

 

I got a customer service reply that doesn't give me a ton of confidence.... they open all packages for quality control? I can't believe they'd ship this one with all the grease and tape glue on the box. There are Timken counterfeit detection documents online mostly for high end bearings that show they mark everything. I can't imagine that they don't mark their auto grade parts similarly. I can't think of any reason there wouldn't be ANY markings on this part. I'm going to install it and hope it doesn't give me problems. If Timken comes back and says it's a fake, I don't know where I'll buy parts...... can't imagine only being able to trust the dealer.

 

The fake bearing problem isn't really for automotive bearings, it's for Timken industrial bearings.

However I just noticed that your bearing has absolutely NO identifying marks on it, typically there's a stamp on the race that identifies the part number or has a manufacturers code, or an assembly plant, quality control number, or SOMETHING stamped on it and yours looks blank? Maybe just a trick of the light???

I would CALL rockauto and ask them to pull another one off the shelf and compare for a number stamped / laser etched because it definitely looks fishy. Possibly also just call around to other vendors that carry the same bearing and ask them to check their stock.

EDIT: It's possible someone did the old "switcheroo" and bought the rockauto bearing, then went down to El Cheapo parts house, bought El Shito brand bearing, installed the Timken, returned the El Shito in the Timken box back to Rockauto...

DoubleEDIT: Call around to local parts houses to see if anyone carries the Timken locally, then you can do a side-by-side comparison.

 

The bearing I got which I spoke about in my post above looked exactly like yours in the photo.

 

how many miles have you put on it so far?

 

About 19,500 miles. Zero issues so far, but I as well had my concerns as you did when I took it out of the box. It was a completely different bearing than the other rear and both front bearings.

 

I bought a timken front wheel bearing about 6 months ago. I got it off Amazon, packaging seemed legit, but yeah, I remember the bearing/hub had no markings/stamps on it whatsoever that I recall. 5,000 miles on it and no issues.

 

Hub or hub and bearing? Because here's the Timken hub/bearing assembly I got from Rockauto last summer.

 

That's for the coupe. You can't get a hub/bearing assembly for the X from rock auto.

 

Ahhh right! Didn’t notice this was in the sedan sub-forum.