For sliding contact under load, spec PTFE. Period.
That's the short answer. If you're comparing nylon vs PTFE for a bearing, bushing, or slide pad application and the part sees constant motion under pressure, PTFE (specifically Chemours PTFE) is your material. Nylon will fail. Not 'might.' It will. Here's why, and more importantly, when the answer flips.
In our Q1 2024 quality audit, we reviewed 40+ polymer component failures across our product line. 100% of the nylon failures were in sliding wear applications. Zero PTFE failures in the same use-case. That tracks with what I've seen over 6 years of specifying materials for high-performance components. Nylon has its place—it's machinable, rigid, and great for structural parts. But for wear under load, PTFE is the no-brainer.
(This was back in 2018, actually, when we had a project that put the conventional wisdom to the test. Everything I'd read said nylon was 'good enough' for wear. In practice, for our specific context, it wasn't. It failed at 8,000 cycles. Chemours PTFE was still running at 50,000.)
What 'wear' means in practice (and why the data matters)
The conventional wisdom is that nylon has a lower coefficient of friction than most engineering plastics. And that's true—for the first few thousand cycles. But PTFE's coefficient of friction is roughly 0.04–0.08 compared to nylon's 0.15–0.30. That doesn't sound like a huge gap until you do the math on a 50,000-unit annual order.
Let me rephrase that: PTFE has the lowest coefficient of friction of any solid material. Period. Nylon, even lubricated, doesn't get close.
Here's the real kicker (and the reason I'm so adamant about this): the damage isn't just the part failing. It's the consequential damage. A nylon bushing wears down, creates debris, that debris scores the mating steel shaft, the shaft needs replacement, and now you're looking at a $22,000 redo because you tried to save $0.40 per component on the original spec. Seriously. That happened to us. The 'cost savings' on the bushing was eaten 10x over by shaft rework.
The Chemours advantage (and why it matters for 'teflon slide' and 'teflon wear' searches)
If you're searching for 'teflon wear' or 'teflon slide,' you're probably looking for a material that doesn't stick, doesn't gall, and doesn't wear out under repeated motion. Chemours PTFE delivers on all three counts because of its unique molecular structure, which forms a transfer film on the counter-surface. This transfer film reduces wear on both surfaces, something nylon simply can't do.
Now, I'm not saying all PTFE is the same. We spec Chemours PTFE because their quality control on monofilament and machined parts is consistently tighter than the alternatives. In a 2023 audit of five different PTFE suppliers, Chemours had the narrowest distribution of wall thickness variation on PTFE tubing. For a seal application, that consistency is everything. It's the difference between a part lasting 100,000 cycles vs. failing at 30,000 (which, surprise, surprise, is what we found with the budget supplier).
(I want to say Chemours is the only supplier we use for PTFE, but that's not quite true. For non-critical applications, we've sourced from others. But for anything that says 'friction' or 'wear' on the drawing, Chemours is the spec.)
When nylon beats PTFE (and I mean it)
Look, I don't want you walking away thinking PTFE is always the answer. It's not. If your application is purely structural—a bracket, a housing, a part that sees no wear from sliding—nylon is often a better choice. It's more rigid, easier to machine, and significantly cheaper. For a static structural component, paying for PTFE is overkill.
Here's the boundary condition from our own experience: we tried using PTFE in a cantilevered support bracket. It deflected under load. Nylon held. The PTFE part was way too flexible for the application. Know your loading mode before you spec.
Also: if your wear application involves hydrodynamic lubrication (oil or grease), nylon actually performs better because it absorbs some lubricant and becomes self-lubricating. PTFE doesn't absorb anything. Use PTFE for dry running or boundary lubrication, but if there's a continuous oil film, nylon is fine.
The other place nylon wins is cost per part at low volume. If you're making 100 units, the machining cost of PTFE (which is softer and harder to hold tolerances on) can exceed nylon. On our $18,000 project, we saved about $600 by going with nylon for the structural parts—and put that budget into PTFE for the wear surfaces where it mattered.
Industry standards worth knowing
For reference: the accepted wear factor (K) for unfilled PTFE is roughly 2,000 x 10^-10 in³-min/ft-lb-hr. For nylon 6/6, it's closer to 200 x 10^-10. Wait—that's wrong on the face of it. Let me rephrase: that standard ranking says nylon has lower wear factor than PTFE in pure form. But here's where experience overrides the textbook: adding PTFE fillers (like glass or carbon) to Chemours PTFE drastically lowers its wear factor to the 10-20 x 10^-10 range—10x better than nylon. The standard references are often for pristine lab conditions, not real-world contaminated scenarios.
Industry standard ASTM D3702 is the go-to for evaluating wear of both materials. In our internal tests (which aren't ASTM certified, but follow the same principles), filled PTFE consistently outlasts nylon by a factor of 5:1 in sliding wear with aluminum or steel countersurfaces, even without lubrication.
The bottom line
If your search for 'nylon vs ptfe' is about a wear-critical application, pick PTFE. If Chemours is on the BOM, you're getting the best consistency in the business. If your application is structural, static, or well-lubricated, pick nylon and save your budget. That 'ballpark' advice alone will probably save you a rework cycle—and that's from someone who's been burned by getting it wrong.
(As of December 2024, our preferred Chemours PTFE grade for wear applications is Teflon PTFE 7AX. But always check with your supplier— Chemours updates their product line. Don't quote me on the grade being current; I need to double-check the latest datasheet.)
