Posted by David Sherman on Sunday, July 11, 2004 at 12:17PM :
In Reply to: Napa price shock posted by Steve Elliot on Saturday, July 10, 2004 at 3:42PM :
All bearings have numbers on them that any good industrial bearing house can cross-reference to various manufacturers. Even on automotive bearings, the numbers on the bearings themselves are the manufacturer's (almost always Timken for tapered roller bearings) part number, not a Mopar or Napa number. Sometimes the bearing house will be quite a bit cheaper than NAPA, sometimes it's the other way around. Another thing about the industrial places is they can usually give you a choice of quality and price and if you want American-made, they can be sure to get you one, whereas the bearings that are packaged as auto parts are most likely made wherever it's cheapest, which is China these days.
I have used "Applied Industrial Technology" (formerly called "Bearings Inc", but the must have got a fancy marketeer) and Kaman.