oem seals vs aftermarket

All our local suppliers are selling the same make of seals these days. I have not been having a great experience with this name aftermarket brand seal in a wide variety of applications.
On my 3500, I was having continual axle seal failure on the 11.5 aam rear end. I always buy more than one seal to have spares on the shelf. Having spares of brand x led to
having to continually change the axles seals every 3-4 months before I went back to buying oem seals for the rear end. There is no visual failure to the aftermarket seals, they just
start leaking. I compared the aftermarket seal to the OEM and noticed that the oem has a thin brown greese on the seal lip to seal sleave. I tried pre-lubing the aftermarket seal to mimic
the oem seal, same result as before, short seal life. I am thinking that thin lube on the oem seals is some sore of engineered seal conditioner and lubricant to keep the seal alive long term.
I have had oem seals on the rear end for over a year now, no leaks.
Replaced the rear housing extension housing seal on the srt-10 with brand x replacement about 5 months ago, doing it again today.
I have a gearbox I serviced for a customer, used brand x seals in that, can't keep seals in it, leaks after 4-5 weeks.
I think aftermarket can make a seal that for the most part is dimensionally correct, but the secret is in the seal material to lubricant interaction.
When I was at the dealer to get rear diff oil for the Viper, they were short of the gear oil for it. The parts guy asked one of the techs about using an equivalent oil in it, he said not to unless
I wanted to look forward to rear end leaks. He said mopar spec oils have specific blends for seal compatibility.
The weirdness is the oem seals so far been cheaper than the aftermarket, the only problem is I have to wait for them to be shipped to the dealer.

Welcome to the world of our current aftermarket parts suppliers. They get the parts cheaper, sell them at a substantial mark up and it allows the CEO's and other management to draw exorbitant salaries while driving us nuts.
I can name a multitude of examples, but just from last week,
Three radiator drain petcocks from different sources that all did the same thing. The "wing" portion used to loosen or tighten the drain portion just spins. The last one was from Napa and appeared identical in every way except price which was twice as much @ ~ $12.00. I finally dug through my used parts bin and found a good used one.

Thermostat housing gaskets made from a black material. We have had several of these that very slowly dribble a very small drop or so every hour when under pressure. Swap in a felpro gasket and every time the leak goes away. I also found it interesting that the suppliers had plenty of the 'cheaper' black gaskets, but each only had 1 of the felpro's available. I will also mention this was not an odd ball application being a mid 70's small block chevy

Total time lost on above two issues probably exceeds 10 hours.

I proceeded to order 10 Felpro gaskets and made in the USA petcocks online. And yes with shipping they were cheaper than buying local. The key point for me is the products worked the 1st time.
I do not pay much attention when corporate america whines that online sales are killing their business. Their management or lack thereof and their salaries are at the root of the problem

the song "money" comes to mind.
i don't know the band's name.........

Flying Lizzards ?

Pink Floyd

Don't forget the O'Jays... released ~1973

You pay for what you get with parts. Commodity items? Global sourcing has / is taking over. Corporate profits come first!

You pay for what you get.

i believe it was this version, with the lyrics "don't give me your voodoo bull****" that our local station always "leaves out".

Yup, same here local...

Many times OEM parts are poo pooed because the price from our LOCAL dealers is insanely high. But I order OEM parts from online dealers and spend ALOT less than what my local dealer sells for. Obviously you wont get your seals same day but its worth setting up a free account at an online dealership whom has great prices.

Uber, I would make a suggestion for you to visit a good truck parts supplier - like Greggs Fort Garry. There are some great quality seal companies building top-notch seals for the truck industry - the truck parts suppliers are much more critical about quality than typical auto parts stores. The two manufacturers that come to mind are CR & Stemco. I'm sure they have automotive seals as well as all the truck & trailer seals. A good parts house the like the above two will know who makes the best seals, & they probably carry them.