Well I'm probably not the best person to ask, of course I am slightly biased

The OE bearings were produced by Vandervell (now MAHLE) and are a high spec cast bearing. Pretty much all aftermarket bearings are sintered material, which has a lower load bearing capacity than cast. Also bear in mind the main bearings that most manufacturers are selling are Pinto bearings - same size but with a grooved lower shell. Again, this reduces the load bearing capacity of the lower bearing.

What the OE bearings do not have is the racing notch and laser marking of our Motorsport bearings. If you google vandervell you should find our race unit website which has some information you can download on these features. I'm not aware of any other aftermarket or OE bearings that are using laser marking and the racing notch design is certainly unique to MAHLE Motorsport bearings.

I am unsure who is producing the bearings for Ford now - as you probably know, the parts fitted to the car from new are not always the same parts sold by the dealer as spare parts. I haven't checked in recent months, but it has been a few years since we produced the YB bearing for OE Spares.

Kind regards,
MAHLE