Knowledge Building: Wheel Bearing Market

It is always desirable to have proper coverage on parts you stock. This is especially true of seals and bearings and the complete hub units that are now entering the repair and replacement cycle.

The message is don’t lose any sales, because bearings have a long life span, and jobbers and installers may not get another opportunity to replace those bearings or the popular hub units on the cars that they miss.

Dave Mayer, the head product manager at SKF, explains that the industry has now gone through three generations of hub units.

“The first generation began in the early 1980s. Generation One is basically a double contact ball bearing that pressed onto a hub used on the front wheel drives in the early ’80s. Then we went to Generation Two: that was a hub bearing mounted on a flange and was mainly used for the rear wheels of a front wheel drive vehicle. And now it has gone to a Generation Three, with the mounting flange, and gone to units with ABS sensors for both the front and rear wheel applications.

“In the last six or seven years they have grown annually at an average of 15% to 20% in units and dollars. It has undergone significant growth, say, from a $20 million business to an $80 million business in the U.S. They are basically displacing the old tapered roller bearings.”

And change continues, he says, with “Generation 3.5” that has the sensors mounted internally.

He says that the old tapered roller bearing units were inspected every 50,000 km and often replaced, but at least inspected. The hub units are lasting 100,000 to 160,000 km. “People are driving a lot more. That is pretty much an advantage as they do last longer.

“Hub units are pretty well a sealed unit, so seal sales have been declining.”

But not as much as one might have thought, says Jim Lackowski, also a product manager at SKF. He says the wheel bearing seal count didn’t exactly drop over the past five years, but migrated inboard more toward the output side of the transmission axle as opposed to the front wheel. But there has been a drop in seals, mostly related to the transmission and the engine. He says there used to be 153 seals on a vehicle; now it is down to right around 100. “They didn’t lose any on the axles. If you have a rear wheel axle sealed bearing unit, you still had a seal on the bearing itself. It just migrated away from the axle to the hub unit. The hub unit became a complete unit and the seal remained to keep the contaminants out. So it went away from a service point of view.”

One day, cars will be manufactured in modular fashion. Entire corners will be replaced instead of individual components.

And finally SKF’s Neil Hogan, another expert on hub units, warns installers, “We do recommend the initial torque setting on the units with axle nuts as a very important part of proper installation. Because if that is missed and it is too tight or too loose you are going to have a premature bearing failure on it. A lot of times technicians will use an impact wrench that is twice the specification it should be. They’ll call us and say it is making noise. That is why we put out a small catalog to show the different front and rear torque specifications.”

This is even more critical considering that these later-generation bearings carry a hefty price tag compared to the traditional tapered roller bearing.

Tony Ramos, marketing coordinator at FAG Bearings, describes the third generation hub assembly as basically being a bolt-on part.

“The entire assembly comes off. You slide it off the driveshaft in the front application and you just slide in a new one and bolt it on according to the torque spec. Reinstall the brakes, make sure the alignment is good, and off you go.”

He also notes that OEs are moving toward fully assembled components. The OEs are always looking to reduce costs. For them, having a fully assembled piece means they don’t have to pay somebody to put six pieces together to assemble that unit. They are trying to reduce costs and save money wherever they can. (That’s Generation Four coming up: The Modular Revolution.)

“In our aftermarket program we try to source products that are of the same calibre of quality as our FAG line. We are not looking for the cheapest product on the market, simply because sometimes you risk your reputation to save a little bit of money and that is not worth it at the end of the day. We want our customers happy, and we want to make sure that we give them a safe product that will meet the expectations of the industry–and that is exactly what every reputable company likes to do.

“With regard to FAG, at the OE level we partner with the OEs to develop products for the vehicle. They come to us with an idea and we try to come as close to that idea as possible. We now have some parts with integrated sensors built right into the hub unit. That is becoming more commonplace now especially with ABS, having the sensor inside in a protective environment. It makes it more reliable than having it installed on the driveshaft or the upside of the hub. If corrosion sets in, the sensors go, and as a lot of installers know, chasing down an ABS problem can be a nightmare.

“Having a sensor inside the bearing senses the true rolling motion of the bearing, as opposed to getting feedback through a driveshaft.”

Most bearings can withstand more than 100,000 km, but contamination is the biggest enemy. What is the worst kind of contamination? Check out a map of Canada.

A vehicle sitting in water for a prolonged period of time, as well as snow, ice etc., are the worst things you can subject a bearing to, and Canadians do it in droves.

“They always expect them to work without a hitch,” says Ramos. “And when something goes wrong they all freak out about how expensive a repair it is. People should realize that when replacing bearings, they last a long time. It’s a severe environment for bearings due to heat and friction and extreme cold. Bearings aren’t advertised like some products, ‘buy a bearing and get one free’; they last.”

Michael Wilson, Federal-Mogul’s brand manager, along with Ron Caroll, Broadmarket Bearings and Seals, and Shane Crook, Special Markets and Seals, make many of the same comments on the evolution of bearings and seals.

They believe that technician training is still the key to that market, as well as others that their company is involved with.

They want to make it easier for the technician, and have a poster with installation and removal procedures which is rolled into some literature for different makes and imports. The company also supplies numerous application charts to help technicians.

The key to all of the tools from suppliers is to aid in the identification of bearing problems, and to allow jobbers to know ahead of time which applications may be coming into the service bays.

Unlike some other categories that can rely on the impact of short service intervals to determine overall demand, wheel bearings require more advanced forecasting. Since bearing life can easily be in the 100,000 km to 160,000-km range–the roads are full of vehicles with 200,000 km and their original wheel bearings–it is imperative to be prepared to capture the sale when the opportunity arises.

For jobbers and counterpeople, the need to be familiar with this potential is critical to capturing this business.

The potential is there, but fail to recognize it and stock for it and you can watch it roll away into the distance.

–Bob Blans, contributing editor.