We replaced the front left hub and wheel bearing with a low cost bearing and hub about 5 months ago. Paid $27 for an APC bearing. It has a 1 year warrantee, so I got another set (Hub and Bearing). I was also told that the brand "National" would be better, so at 3x the cost or $90 I bought one of those. Both have the same part #510095.

My mechanics were looking at the difference of the two bearings. The national seems to have a magnetic area on both sides. The APC has the magnetic side only on one side, and the other looks like its just a seal, but not flat. More of lines.

When I look online at the National Bearing with this number some pictures show the same two different sided picture as the APC bearing. i.e., one sided magnet.

Can someone explain, why do you think the first bearing only lasted 5 months, and do you think the National Bearing with 2 sides magnetic would be a better buy.

5 months ago the front left was making noise, and now the noise is back. Not sure why this has happened? Have to pay some labor, and $ to press bearing.

What do I need to know about bearings..? and install

 

Cheap parts are cheap for a reason. Stick with quality parts and find a better mechanic.

Bearings can fail due to poor assembly,parts, or installation procedure.

 

cheap parts can be good, but part of what reduces the cost is lowering of the minimum threshold of quality. a more expensive bearing should have a lower chance of poor quality than a cheaper one.

hypothetical: bearing A is half the cost of bearing B but has a 30% chance of premature failure where B only has a 2% chance. Importantly, 70% of A and 98% of B are essentially the same thing. you're paying to reduce the probability of getting a bad one.

but I would imagine if your mechanic with the parts in his hand and the noise in his ear can't tell you why it failed, neither will a stranger on the internet. we can only offer a guess.

this sort of thing can help though