Buying spares. Suggestions

[dazzlesa]

I need to buy some spare for my 1994 prelude. Rear hubs, axles, front calipers. I was looking at prices and they are all over the place. What is good and what is cheap shit?

[Matt93SE]

Are you looking for salvage yard spares or reman'd parts store stuff?
Check rockauto for reman stuff and car-part.com for salvage yard parts.

Last time I bought new front end parts for my truck, Rockauto was about 1/2 the price of the local OReillys or Autozone, even after shipping.

[Wreckerboy]

Another good source is Amazon Prime. It's scary how many car parts I've bought there of late. I just bought four Centrix Premium rotors with free two day shipping for less than what AuoVatoPepZone Boys wanted for Brand X carp, and RockAuto didn't come close by the time shipping was figured into the equation.

[dazzlesa]

I am looking for new hubs and reman'd axles and calipers. I have looked at my local place, autozone and rock auto. for example a hub can be $30 or it can be $106. how do we even know if the more expensive part is actually better? is the $30 part going to last 5 min?

[Matt93SE]

The big issue there is the brand. for hubs, I'd stay away from "Cheap Chinese stuff" and look for name brands- Honda OEM, Timken, NTK, SKF, etc. I don't know who the OEM was on your car but it was probably one of the big names.

Even the newer big name stuff seems to have gone lower in quality and the bearings only last a couple seasons whereas the OEM stuff has lasted yeeeears. i.e. I converted my car to 5-lug by swapping in salvage yard hubs & bearings about 8 years ago and I'm still on the same front bearings and only replaced 1, maybe 2 rear bearings... and I use the curbs like the Aussie V8 guys...

When I mean 8 years in the car, I've put about 35,000 miles on the chassis since I put the cage in it 6 years ago. prior to that it was a track day/daily driver. Chassis currently has about 140k miles on it and I swapped hubs and such about 95k.

Other people I've talked to with cheap aftermarket bearings go through a set per season. YMMV.