SKF AB (Gothenberg, Sweden), through its SKF India subsidiary, will be test-marketing complete wheel bearing kits in India, starting with the front and rear wheels of the popular Maruti 800. If successful, the product line will be extended to other vehicles and markets outside the Karnatka and Andhra Pradesh test markets.

Torsten Nordgren, outgoing Managing Director of SKF India, said, "We are the first company to introduce bearing kits which would be a one-stop solution for aftermarket mechanics and customers."

At a minimum, wheel kit have the inner and outer bearing (or unit bearing) and seal, packaged together for a specific application. Kits often contain other ancillary hardware such as cotter pins, lock nuts and washers.

Although Mr. Nordgren pointed out that 55% of SKF's sales in Europe are kits, success is by no means guaranteed.

The company's VKBA wheel kit series failed in North America, primarily because the advantages - a somewhat simplified inventory requirement and guaranteed complete sale - were seen by the distribution network to be far outweighed by a long list of disadvantages.

For example, kits by their very nature often create massive inventory duplication and inefficiency - 75 different kits are needed to cover the combinations of just 5 different bearings and seals. In an aftermarket industry plagued by parts proliferation, distributor inventory costs and storage issues alone were enough to kill the program. Today, the only common light-duty wheel kits in North America are for trailers. On the heavy-duty side, wheel-end kits are more readily available and marketed by most major manufacturers.

Other considerations are active in the Indian market. One reseller told eBearing that in India, where counterfeit bearings are everywhere, it's comforting to the buyer to get a sealed, prepackaged kit direct from a highly regarded manufacturer such as SKF.