> and I can't see anything in the Dorman units -
> besides a brand name -
Not necessarily relevant, but I'll never buy a Dorman product again. Kind of a
long story, but they were the only source I could
find for rear half shafts for my Buick wagon. I went through 4 of them before
realizing that the shafts themselves were not made
properly; the last time actually set the car on fire!
With that axle, the shaft forms the inner race for the wheel bearing, and is
supposed to have a hardened area where the rollers run.
I don't know what they did wrong, but on every Dorman shaft, the bearing area
spalled away and left a big groove in the axle. When
it caught fire, I'd been driving in the hills and hadn't noticed that the brake
shoes were mostly supporting the car (so the drum
was red hot). When the seal finally melted from the heat, the axle oil running
into the hot drum caught fire. Big scare, ruined
vacation, and I don't know how many $1000 spent renting a car and a motel room,
etc, on top of the $2000 to fix the axle (which had
to be rebuilt again less than 1000 miles later, apparently because the first
shop reused the Dorman shaft that hadn't already
failed).
Dorman used to be a quality, mostly made-in-USA name. But apparently the
Dorman family sold the business some years ago, and now
Dorman parts are mostly Chinese junk.
YMMV, IMO, NFI and all that stuff.
-- Randall
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