Chinese Wheel Bearings

[WaltH]

Early in 2008 I discovered that two of the three rear wheel bearings in my Spyder were made in China. The country of origin for the third one (double wide for the sprocket) was the U.S.A. I was not comfortable with this and would have preferred that all three bearings were made in North America, or possibly Europe. There was quite a lot of discussion of this on Spyderlovers at the time. BRP responded to our concerns by changing the country of origin for all three bearings to the U.S.A. They also changed the part number for the two single-wides. When my 2009 Spyder was manufactured in December, 2008, it used the new bearings. I assumed this would be a permanent change. I don't know what the country of origin was for the bearings in my 2011 Spyder, partly because I was working off my personal inventory, and partly because I had no reason to verify my assumption. Somewhere along the way, BRP changed back to sourcing the two single-wides in China. They did not change the part number. My 2013 Spyder has two Chinese bearings and one made in the U.S.A.

All three bearings are made by NSK Corporation, a highly regarded Japanese company. Some NSK bearing are assembled in Chicago from parts manufactured in China. These bearings show China as the country of origin. SKF corporation, another highly regarded bearing manufacturer, with a U.S. subsidiary does manufacture compatible bearings for the Spyder entirely in the U.S.A. The list price is about three times the BRP, OEM price.

Since I change all of the rear wheel bearings every time I change the rear tire, I have decided to go with the OEM bearings for now. I am depending upon NSK's quality control system for my safety.

 

[MMcc]

Made in China

I have worked in China for various companies since 2004. It has been my observation that quality control in the foreign owned companies to be quite good. That being said early on we found a number of knock off products that would not measure up. Over the years I have seen a great deal of improvement in China manufacturing but there still is the stigma associated with the poor quality. I do remember when first working in Japan many years before I discussed with the plant managers how in the US we always tried to stay away from anything manufactured in Japan. Of course that has how changed and people respect the quality of Japanese products. I am sure the same thing will occur with Chinese manufacturing. A number of my clients are looking to or have moved to Viet Nam, India, Malaysia or other countries where the labor is again very cheap as China has again raised the minimum wage. I would not be concerned with products made in China for export to the foreign market but I would shy away from items made in China for the local market and then purchase and re-sold by individuals on eBay or other auction sites at deep discount prices. JMO