Febest suspension parts, beware!

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5050GRIP
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Posts: 47
Joined: Thu Dec 27, 2012 1:06 am

Febest suspension parts, beware!

Post by 5050GRIP »

I own a 2nd gen Outback chassis. As you already know if you have to replace the bushings in these chassis apposed to say the more simpler Impreza chassis, it can be very time consuming and expensive to say the least.

My chassis has now 260K, I use it as a daily driver mostly highway use. At about the 150k the suspension started to show its age, so I took on the daunting task to rebuild the suspension myself. I started at 170K by changing out all four shocks and struts. Then last year at 200K I started changing out all the bushings, started with large the front control arm bushings as one of them started to leak a bit, changed them to Febest which are solid rubber instead of liquid filled, then front ball joints, BIG PIA.

Then rear upper control arms with Whitelines, sway bar with Whitelines greaseless, rear lower control arms with OEM bushings, front shock tower plates with Febest, swaybar end links with Febest, rear trailing arms with OEM, rear diff with Whiteline inserts, however I did buy the OEM but the job was too daunting.
So far list of Febest that I installed and bought from Febest;
swaybar end links, FAILED under 30k
front strut plates, FAILED less than 20K
Front ball joints, FAILED under 8K
Front large lower bushings, FAILED failed at about 25K
Steering rack
front front bushings
mileage are about.

A little history on Febest company, they are US based company that ditributes out of Florida, they claim that there products are designed in Germany, however at the bottom of the boxes they all say made in, you guessed it, China.
They sell there products on Amazon and eBay, they said when I asked them why store chins do not stock there products " we are working on it as they have there way of deciding who they want to carry" this was last year.
I would have thought with the extravagant claims they make for there product they would be at least half decent " Each Individual component of each one of our parts is made with high quality materials.

Unlike our competitors we use only high quality Natural Rubber (75%). This means that the rubber is more durable, and will last longer. The Rubber wont rub off on hand like the cheap replacement parts offered by competitors.

Febest uses High Quality Synthetic Grease instead of cheap lubricant, that means that it can handle all different weather conditions in all different terrains.

All Febest Metal Parts are Heat treated (60 rockwells)

Febest has German VW engineers handling all of our quality control. They are redeveloping the metals and rubbers to create a HIGH QUALITY, super durable, and long lasting product.
Not so!
All of the Febest parts I have installed on my chassis has failed between 10-30k including there strut plates (bearings are shot).
and all of the factory and whiteline are holding up very well.

some pics of the failed parts;
Some of the pics are of factory bushes with 12years use on them and the failed febest parts.
First pics Febest swaybar end link after about 15K, second pic factory front front bushing after 13years and 260k miles, still in great condition considering the stress and amount of use, second pic Febest ball joint after about 8K miles;
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Last edited by 5050GRIP on Sun Nov 20, 2016 2:14 pm, edited 4 times in total.
5050GRIP
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Posts: 47
Joined: Thu Dec 27, 2012 1:06 am

Re: Febest suspension parts, beware!

Post by 5050GRIP »

Some more pics of Febest failed parts,, take note that the ball joints boots not only failed but the joint itself was shaking very bad as if about to come part, replaced withg factory ball joint that has about 30k on it and still feels like new.
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5050GRIP
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Joined: Thu Dec 27, 2012 1:06 am

Re: Febest suspension parts, beware!

Post by 5050GRIP »

200k Factory parts next to new febest parts
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w.rohr
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Re: Febest suspension parts, beware!

Post by w.rohr »

Yikes! That sucks. Thanks for the heads up as I am about to replace many of these parts. Let me know if you fin a good vendor.
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kamesama980
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Re: Febest suspension parts, beware!

Post by kamesama980 »

So in other words, people can say anything on the internet. Same VW engineers that have been in the news lately or the ones that got laid off and were looking for work.

I like supporting the little guy and innovation but it goes to show sometimes it's worth it to spend a little more for a name-brand part. There are too many importers of chinese knockoff junk willing to say anything to make a buck. This company will probably be out of business and 3 others in it's place selling the same parts under different names in no time.

I ordered some wheel adapters from a seemingly legit place an hour away supposedly made in USA locally. Ordered online and picked up in person...turns out while they've been around a while it's basically just mail-order through a building that looks like it used to be a rent-a-storage. the company and webpage I ordered from are more of just a small corner for the business whose primary market is more of the pimp-my-ride-style magazines. I was a bit underwhelmed to say the least. cursory search didn't find any bad reviews for them so we'll see how they go.
-Russell
"You don't get to judge me for how I fix what you break"
03 sport 5mt
05 turbo 5mt vf39 and other STI bits, 3" turbo-back
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