My passenger side rear wheel bearing/hub is making noise and it's slowly getting worse. My 2006 LS has 146k miles on it. Couple of questions -

1. OEM hubs are $300 or more. Has anyone installed a non OEM or non Koyo hub and had a good result? Lots of aftermarket hubs available - some as low as $57 per hub. I'm guessing the super low price hubs are junk. But are there some mid line hubs that are nearly as good as the OEM or Koyo hubs? I only drive my car 5-6k miles per year so don't need the replacement hub to last 100k+ miles, but I don't want to replace every year.

2. If the passenger side hub has gone bad is it likely that the rear driver's side is also going bad? Should I replace both rear hubs even though only one hub is making noise?

3. Any links to reliable vendors to buy a replacement rear hub. There is a vendor supposedly selling Koyo hub for $172 online - not sure if they are reliable.

4. Is there a different part for the passenger side versus the driver side hub assembly? Are they identical?

 

Koyo.

The car is heavy, rear wheel drive, complex suspension and many components at the rear wheel hub. I wouldn’t even put Timken there.

 

Definitely Koyo. Two options for getting a cheaper Koyo is to look at pictures of the back of the other brands to see which use the Koyo bearing as there are a few. Option 2 is to search part number 3DACF044DCFG. This is the actual Koyo part number but only available overseas. I got mine for $75 each but shipping runs about $50 each. Look on partsouq, megazip, or Amayama. They do coupon sales all the time too. Mine came from the UAE and took about a week to get here.
I did replace both sides even though only one was making noise. The quiet side bearing wasn't far behind the loud one as it wasn't smooth.

 

Koyo or Timken are both OE quality

 

Koyo Japan bearing
https://www.rockauto.com/en/moreinfo...pt=1636&jsn=25
5% off
221537747200586803

left/right are the same

 

Without a doubt….. Koyo. Did front and rear on passenger side with Koyo hubs. Looked identical to originals after they were removed. No problems since.

 

Thanks for the replies. I ended up ordering the Timken hub from Rockauto. Looks to have the Koyo bearing. $246 delivered. Local shop says $360 labor to install. 10 years ago I'd happily do it myself, pop a couple of advil and be good to go. These days my high mileage back, neck, and hands say pay the nice man.

Given I only drive 5k miles a year these days, I'm going to do rear passenger side only and hope for the best.

btw- Note 95% of the time I drive like a little old lady on her way to church. But sometimes... That bearing only started to make noise early in 2022 after I decided to run 90-110 mph for a couple of hours very early one morning on a very deserted stretch of interstate. The LS is the best road trip car I have ever owned, but going that fast for that long in the LS, may have been a little too much for that 16 year old bearing.

 

$360 for less than an hour of labor seems really high to me. I'm not sure what the book time is but it took me about 45 minutes each side.

 

If one side is worn, I've found no need to replace the other side. It's not an inexpensive repair when using quality hubs. I replaced both hubs on one side 10s of thousands of miles ago and no problem since on the other side......Maybe I shouldn't have said that! lol

 

It took 45 minutes for you to replace the -rear- wheel hub bearing? That’s God level speed for this job. I don’t know how to believe this knowing what I went through when I did this job myself. Two days, creativity, metal plates to align the duster, double checking for errors, etc.

 

45 minutes is a touch unrealistic there is an axle to deal with.

 

It's not unrealistic as thats how long it took me to do the second side. The first side took a bit longer until I figured out how to deal with the dust shield. The only complication the axle presents is removing the nut and releasing it from the hub.