I'm hoping a bit more hammer damage on the one YOU have.

Well, whatever version it is I guess I'll have to deal with it since they're becoming so rare. I still don't understand why I need a new bearing if it only has a few thousand miles on it... if I have to change the bearing every few thousand miles for $50 bucks a pop, I don't think I want this pulley anyway... that's why too damn expensive to replace once every few months.

I'm not questioning the advice though, because I know next to nothing about this stuff.

EDIT: I did some more research, and I think we had our wires crossed... I thought the bearing came WITH the pulley as part of the pulley... now that I know what a bearing is, it appears you were talking about the OEM bearing that's already on the car. My Xfire only has 8,000 miles on it, so the bearing really doesn't have that much use on it... so does your advice still stand? I'm not buying a part because it "might fail" later on down the road if the one I have on there is damn near good enough already. The one I have on my car should be identical to the NGK OEM bearing that hpa sells on their website. Just for reference, this is the one you are talking about (?):

http://hpashop.com/product.sc?produc...&categoryId=58