FWIW I used a Motorcraft wheel bearing for my 2018 Mustang when it had accident damage.
Timken bearings made in china?
- Thread starter Rust_Belt_Pete
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Except that union membership is on the decline and a handful of billionaires are taking the money that belongs to the working class, but that's another discussion. DEI? Come on, man.
Belongs? Interesting word choice
Yep.
If you want to scale that, my landscaper was paid $5K for work that added $35K to the value of my property when I sold it. He was not at the closing looking for a bigger paycheck.
What does that have to do with the price of tea in China?
Workers are compensated for the labor they expend by the wage they accept. Any value they produce beyond that is not theirs.
My comment was about unions and "DEI". Unions negotiate labor and the big players hate that. Union membership is at an all-time low. Look it up and stay on topic please.
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One would say everyone wants to pay the lowest price point possible for the quality they are willing to accept.
It is on topic. You brought up a class argument of money supposedly belonging to the "working class" when it does not if they have been compensated for their labor already.
I have made the point I wanted to make so I will stop at that rather than get into a tit for tat discussion.
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When i was a kid in the late 1950s, I lived in Newark NJ, across the Passaic River from Harrison NJ.
Harrison was an industrial town. It had a large Radio Corporation of America (RCA) factory that made electronic vacuum tubes. Adjacent was a Timken plant that made bearings. Nearby were factories for Otis Elevator, a large Worthington pump works, and other industrial facilities.
They are all closed how, and Harrison has become gentrified. It has a direct rail connection to Manhattan. The bearings are now made in China, vacuum tubes are obsolete and the replacement solid state devices mostly come from Asia, and who knows where the elevators and industrial pumps are now made.
Harrison was an industrial town. It had a large Radio Corporation of America (RCA) factory that made electronic vacuum tubes. Adjacent was a Timken plant that made bearings. Nearby were factories for Otis Elevator, a large Worthington pump works, and other industrial facilities.
They are all closed how, and Harrison has become gentrified. It has a direct rail connection to Manhattan. The bearings are now made in China, vacuum tubes are obsolete and the replacement solid state devices mostly come from Asia, and who knows where the elevators and industrial pumps are now made.
Chinese companies have started realizing that if they continue to make junk people will look elsewhere. Toyo had a plant in China but they closed it years ago when the Chinese made Toyos were not up to the Japanese standards.
Well, we can tariff the Chinese one 200%, and the tariff will belong to "we the people" 
You would pay the same price if the USA bearing is no longer available. Taking for example a company like Timken, or SKF, or whoever, they are going to fill their US orders with the parts made in the US, not ship those overseas then ship overseas parts here, if they already have a supply here. If the state-side supply is less than the demand, then they will import more to meet demand.
When you pay 75% less for something from China, and the difference is not due to luxury class brand name markup, that's when you get the lower quality, and is usually an off-brand, not major brand. I wouldn't take that lower quality on something like a wheel bearing, even at 75% cost reduction for one-at-a-time repairs. Wheel bearings are not that expensive for most applications.
Higher quality costs more to manufacture in China just as it does in the US. China has an edge in labor, and environmental, and even metal costs, but all these things do not add up to much cost reduction per bearing, considering the volume. It adds up to a supplier buying many thousands and saving a few ten's % on cost, but not so much the end-use consumer.
Companies close shop here and move production to China or other low cost areas to save money. They pocket the excess.
In the consumer world the price continually goes lower because its a constant churn. So I pay $200 for a TV that used to cost $1000.
With a Timken bearing - they still want me to pay $200, but there making it in China now. So there cost is much lower. They don't share the cost savings with me, and they don't pay American labor. There playing off their good name. Same with SKF. Same with Wix filters. et al.
You don't buy bearings often enough to really know if the $200 Chinese bearing is actually better than the $65 Mevotech bearing. It might actually be the same part in rare cases - I have actually seen that.
Also, the actual manufacturing cost of the good is a small part of the equation. Its payroll taxes, benefits, enviro laws, and a host of other things as the primary reason they move out of country.
You are making me feel ancient, which, in fact, I am. there was a time, after ww2, when "Made in Japan, meant low quality junk. By 1970, Nikon, Sony, Toyota, etc. changed Japan's reputation for good.
Technical challenges can be overcome, cultural and ethical not so much.