The right front wheel bearing is shot on my 1997 blazer 4 door 4wd. I called the local Chevy dealer and was quoted $530 for just the part! The parts dept guy told me that my truck is a unique fit for the bearing - a 1 year only part, has anyone else run into this? And what is the luck with OEM vs aftermarket for wheel bearings. I guess my real questions are:

1. Is the parts guy for real and I have a wierd version of the bearing, am I going to wind up trying 3 different ones from autozone before they figure out I need the Chevy part anyway - because the autozone doesn't fit.
2. Is the Chevy part for $530 better than the $130 autozone version - are the aftermarket ones junk in 3 months?

Thanks again for all the help from the members.

 

Timken bearings are good bearings. RockAuto.com has the Timken PN 513061 for $116/each.

The OE PN for your front wheel bearings is 7470013 and GMPartsDirect.com shows a dealer list of $561 with an advertised price of $300. The AC Delco part (what you would get from the dealer or from GMPartsDirect.com) sells for $353 on RockAuto.com and is a very high quality piece. Heckle with the GM parts counter guys. Go in there informed of what the GMPD price is as well as some other online retailers (check out ACDelco.com PN 2064 and Parts4Chevys.com under the OE PN) and go in there and tell them that unless they get to a price you like (something higher, within reason, than the lowest prices you have found) you will take your business elsewhere.

 

Thanks, swartlkk.

But is there anything so unique about my blazer that should make me buy the AC Delco vs aftermarket? I hate to spend $300 vs $116 - but I really would hate to mess around with the wrong parts over and over again only just to wind up with the AC anyway.

 

Aftermarket should fit, but may not last as long as the OE. Quality seems lacking in some of the store brands.

 

I figured that I would give up some life on the aftermarket - just was making sure I didn't completly waste my time/money when others have been down that road already. Called autozone and they have one out of the box that was returned by someone that didn't check which type (with or without sensor) before he bought it - he's going to give me 20% off, so I get the bearing for $80.00. It's a valuecraft with a 90 day warranty but for that price I'll take the chance.

Thanks for your time and advice.