1st Gen Genuine OEM Carrier Bearing for $79

All I know is nine says Toyota, and the box said made in Japan. So a Koyo or NSK bearing, which are both great. The housing is whats most likely made by spicer.

 

Picking mine up from the local Amazon locker tonight, I'll let you guys know what it looks like. If it's not stamped Toyota I'm sending it back

 

Yep, the only way this debate can be proved is for someone to look inside a recent "new in box" Toyota service replacement and see the manufacturer of the bearing. Still, not going to be 100% proof.

Just because a part says Toyota on it means nothing. In fact Toyota suppliers such as Aisin and Denso go out of their way to not say Toyota on their aftermarket replacements. For example, an Aisin water pump purchased in the aftermarket will have the Toyota name (cast on the housing) ground off. A Denso MAF has a blank cover plate where the Toyota sold part says "Toyota". They are likely the same parts but Toyota does not want the after market selling Toyota branded parts at cut rate prices.
Now, with Spicer increasingly supplying Toyota OE, are they now supplying 1st gen service replacements? Did they start it later in 1st gen production? Both are entirely plausible. Only way to tell would be to pull a recent "Toyota sold" one apart.

I'm not saying the Spicer is good or bad. I would likely choose the Spicer for my next one and suggest it to clients.
Folks have had "mostly" good results with both Spicer and Timken replacements at good prices since before this forum was created, really old news.

This is an OE bearing (99).



Finally, it is obvious that the Spicer bearing is mounted in the rubber differently than the OE. The FSM says to align the "line" created by the sheet metal bearing cups (for lack of an official term) to a specific position/range. Is this "line" present on the Spicer?

 

I'm only going by the "Toyota" stamp in this case because everyone in this thread that's had a positive experience with this bearing has one with that stamp. The ones that haven't had a good experience ordered the same bearing from a different supplier and got one without the stamp. But I do agree in general I wouldn't go by that alone on everything.

In fact on most everything else I just buy OEM, either from my local dealer or a cheaper online source.

There wasn't any real doubt about this bearing in this thread until a couple days ago, of course right after I bought it lol. If I had read this stuff beforehand I probably would have just gotten the OEM one and bit the bullet on the price. But we'll what the Spicer one looks like when it arrives tonight.

 

You're going to be just fine. Its not a balljoint that's going to catapult you into a ditch when it fails.

 

yours meaning one you got from Toyota.. or..?

 

Seems like Koyo bearings are on all sorts of things on these trucks. Excellent post as usual!

 

OH wow, didn't know those were rebuildable.

 

They make good Bearings

 

This is what I got.
Toyota bearing in a spicer box. The Toyota PN on the bearing is for a T100 or Land Cruiser, but it fit fine on my tacoma. Even says made in Japan right on the box.

 

Any Koyo, NSK, SKF, FAG, timken, rbi, etc bearing will be good to go. Its the rubber that fails on these carrier bearings not the bearing itself. Like I said earlier its very likely that the bearing inside the spicer one is made by one of those manufacturers, as there are only several manufacturers of quality ball bearings out there. Spicer is likely only making the rubber housing on these.

 

gee whiz that sure does make a $200 price tag for a carrier bearing sound steep now

 

Toyota is definitely proud of their stuff, and getting prouder every day. These things were outrageously priced when they were $116.
Then there is the Denso AC compressor for $180 vs $313 for one in a Toyota box, or the Denso fuel pump for under $100 vs $337, MAF's, FPR's, O2 sensors and so on.

I suppose the bearing could be replaced as they do fail but I would only classify the whole thing as "take apartable", like a fan support bracket.



Or a fuel pump.


Or daddy's electric drill.

 

From Amazon and says Toyota on it

 

Lmaooooo

 

Run it. I doubt you'll have any issues.

 

I'll bet you have a good experience with this one. Thank goodness we found out about looking for the parts direct from the manufacturers, I couldn't stomach OEM parts prices. Whoever first did any searches in general and figured out we had options, a huge thank you

 

From Post #103 above:
"Finally, it is obvious that the Spicer bearing is mounted in the rubber differently than the OE. The FSM says to align the "line" created by the sheet metal bearing cups (for lack of an official term) to a specific position/range. Is this "line" present on the Spicer?"

It was on mine. A side by side comparison with the OE unit proved that they appeared to identical in every way, so I installed it...I'm only at 11K + miles right now, but it is totally quiet and smooth. The real reason I replaced the OE one was that the rubber was rotted! The bearing part was still good as far as I could tell...as usual, YMMV

 

Yeah, I you look at my post #54, you'll see the parts are carbon copies, the Spicer and the OEM i took off.

 

Saw the price dropped to $71 so I pulled the trigger. Thanks for putting this together OP!