Too Stroked
Member
But why would they sell a lesser belt under their own name? That does not make sense to me.
It's actually a very long story - that I won't get into here. In short, parts made for Toyota by Toyota OE suppliers are made to Toyota specifications and sometimes using tooling owned by Toyota. That said, tooling owned by Toyota cannot be used for anything - or anybody - else.
On the plus side, buying parts from a Toyota OE supplier is generally better than buying from somebody who is not. That's because the Toyota OE suppliers know what's important to Toyota and can use that knowledge in building parts that they sell under their own branding. For instance, I have it on very good advice that the Denso alternators that you can buy on RockAuto and other places are not as good as the ones that are supplied to Toyota. Hmmm.
As for buying parts on Amazon or eBay that claim to be "OEM Toyota" this is still a somewhat risky bet. The number of counterfeit parts with convincing looking markings on them is getting to be a real problem. Just Google "counterfeit NGK spark plugs" to see what I mean.
Hope that helps.