anyone have any experience of using cheap bearings in hope hubs?

I’m thinking any 6804 bearing should fit, are the hope ones any different to the £2 ones on ebay?

A mate of mine had his rear hub re-built with cheep bearings 6 months ago. I’ve just finished re-building it again as 4 out of 5 bearings had seized. IMO stick with genuine hope or other branded bearings I.e. skf etc.

What do you think? Decent branded bearings (such as INA that Hope tend to use) cost around £8 each, and so the Hope kits tend to be good value IMO.

I worked with an engineer who fought management tooth and nail to stop them using cheap chinese rubbish bearings.. You don’t save money by needing to replace cheap bearings 2/3/ or 4’s more often than good un’s.

Now maybe your fine spending time replacing your bearings a bit more often, it’s not a hard job on those hubs, so make your choice…

Hope bearings are top quality, usually INA Swiss made. They will outlast the cheap bearings by a long way. Buy cheap, buy twice as they say 8)

sounds like a consensus for decent bearings then, I suppose the originals have lasted a few years so £15 for a pair isn’t bad

Cheers all

It’s also far more environmentally sound to have a long lasting set of bearings. I know lots of people don’t care about this stuff, but I think it’s valuable to think about.

better than finding out they are knackered somewhere inconvenient where you dont have any spares \ tools as well