On Sabbatical
Posted 27 June 2013 - 09:47 PM
I'd start a thread asking people to state where and what poor quality parts they have encountered, and in what manner they failed, but maybe better leave it to a mod - I think this is a very real and worrying problem, and it is only a matter of time before someone suffer more than just an inconvenience......
You could of course just use the section that already exists for this.
Twisted Paint Polisher!!!
Camshaft & Stage Two Head
Posted 27 June 2013 - 11:16 PM
If you have issues with parts from any UK based company then contact them with your issues first before using the forum. If after that you do not get the answer you want ( be careful what you write though) then say on here what your problem is etc.
Bad batches do occur even with the best quality control and not just with our little cars. Even new vehicles suffer with parts being substandard.
As I said, i'm not trying to start a war....but every day you have posts complaining that something didn't fit/fell to bits/lasted 3 miles...blah blah blah....
Your hands are tied between advertisers/trade posters and being frank, that's something that's not easy t balance.
After market parts can be good.....but frequently they aren't. There is a recession on, and people need to make money. People like me would just prefer to pay £25 instead of a tenner for OEM, though not everyone else would.
I wish that more spares outfits would be a bit more honest about stuff.
There is no way that something shipped half way around the world and then dutied and VAT'd and profit'ed that finally ends up half the cost of OEM can be made to a realistic standard - well, that's my view....and if I had a pound for every nut that is supposed to be A4 or 316 but is something inferior....
I too would much rather pay extra for quality parts. Its all very well complaining to the sellers about problems and i know often they will supply new parts or refunds. However it still does not hide the fact that the parts are not to the required quality and does not prevent you having to replace parts yearly that previously would have lasted years.
Quite, but it's a moot point here as suppliers and sponsors are advertisers on the site.
How suppliers aren't forced to state country of origin in the legal hornet's nest that doing business in Europe has become is beyond me.
More to the point, when a few people insist that suppliers pay for expenses incurred in swapping out substandard parts, perhaps we can go back to having good quality spares available in the market place.
..is NOT a girl!
Posted 28 June 2013 - 12:59 AM
We can assure you the sponsors and advertisers have no influence over TMF content (Well maybe [email protected] is a little biased 
).
As you say, you can't be sure of the origin of most parts, regardless of the branding they are sold under - even if they are marked "Made in England" it doesn't mean the material they are made from was. It's also apparent from the shelves full of air freighted fruit 'n veg in our supermarkets, or direct marketed Chinese gizmos on Ebay for little more than the cost of a UK postage stamp that shipping costs aren't a barrier. Besides, if you're shipping raw materials half way round the world to UK manufacturers you're paying to ship their waste as well as what goes into the finished articles.
One of the reasons our defence procurement costs so much is an (understandable) obsession with quality and specifications, yet the MoD is happy to use Chinese suppliers. Huge economies of scale and lower labour costs don't always need substandard products as well to be competitive.
Camshaft & Stage Two Head
Posted 28 June 2013 - 04:59 AM
As per my post - operations with their own supervision can achieve good quality anywhere - I've seen some fine engineering come out of the fareast but I've also seen some terrible junk.
The chinese style of copying is very much ^C , ^V, copy and paste engineering. Take for example the distributors that has given rise to part of this discussion - there is no reason that (as an example) that the BA thread patterns that may have been used in the past should be used now - but I bet they are. The same thing, if you're engineering an electronic distributor then why on earth would you use bob weights and springs? You wouldn't, you'd use the SPi distributor with a pickup - smaller cheaper, and the electronics could be programmed in 2 minutes with a matching advance curve, even the vacuum advance could be handled electronically.
It's not going to happen though - and I have my doubts that if someone checked centrifugal and vacuum advance that they would be that close to OEM spec, or maybe yes, maybe no....
I've seen entire copied multi million dollar projects, complete replicas of western products, down to redundant holes and odd screw pitches that were religiously copied. Yes, they were cheap and perfect copies, apart from the material specs, which in some cases were a joke.
I've also dealt with a couple smaller suppliers for a couple of projects, and they told me that they wouldn't supply bearings or belts because they plain and simply couldn't buy anything of any quality - yes the box said "SKF" or "Fenner", but the closest thing to reality was the box itself.
Agreed, economy from scale of production and lower labour costs can bring down prices, but there is a bottom line for everything , get below that and your going to be buying junk - take the compression gauges on ebay for a tenner, including VAT and post. Just how much are the being made for wherever they come from? And can you actually buy the raw materials for the gauge, hoses, adapters and box for that?
Everyone has to make their own choices, it seems the market is already flooded, and any comment is often received as sour grapes or racism.
I know for a fact that I'd like to see good old clunky English engineering in my old mini as far as possible, not imported stuff, not unless what I fit is proven to be substantially better than UK engineering.
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