This paper presents the characteristics of tapered roller bearings (TRBs) taking into consideration the effects of tapered roller angle error which may occur during manufacturing. To this end, a TRB model including tapered roller angle errors was developed. The effects of tapered roller angle error on the contact load distribution, bearing stiffness and fatigue life were investigated with respect to changes in the tapered roller angle error. A statistical analysis of the fatigue life of TRBs was also provided with respect to tapered roller angle error. Simulation results show that the tapered roller angle error changes the load distribution of the rollers and causes angular misalignment in TRBs, and subsequently, influences the bearing stiffness and fatigue life. The statistical analysis shows that the Weibull distribution is an acceptable method to represent the statistical fatigue life for the practical range of tapered roller angle errors.