Inferior Chinese Products

[Richard G.]

Re: Inferior Chinese Products

What I hate is the China parts with America names.
American Wheel is an example. Not a single wheel is manufactured here.
Should be against the law to label anything with USA or America in the name that wasn't built here. Just my .02 worth.
Rick

[John H.]

Re: Inferior Chinese Products

This has been a very interesting discussion of offshore manufactured parts. Having worked in a machine shop while in high school, I do have an insight as to how parts are made. Today I use parts that are produced with timed threads and components that are so small that the assembly made up of four to six pieces will cover less than a quarter of your small fingernail. From time to time I am offered products made off shore at a great discount. I will not use them as the potential for catastrophic failure is so high as these parts will see stress.That being said, I had a chance to try out a $ 9.90 spray gun (you have seen the add) to touch up an older trailer. Not my Binks set up for sure, but the casting was decent and machining was good. The control of the spray pattern was fine and the silver metallic finish I sprayed had no tiger striping. There was design, tooling, manufacturing, marketing and shipping to the U.S. and everyone made money. AT $9.90! I agree that critical components must meet high standards, but when cosmetic parts can not be produced to replicate an original example that is just sloppy contracting.

[George C.]

Re: Inferior Chinese Products

What I hate is the China parts with America names.
American Wheel is an example. Not a single wheel is manufactured here.
Should be against the law to label anything with USA or America in the name that wasn't built here. Just my .02 worth.
Rick

It's been said " You people in the west will sell us the rope we'll hang you by". Guess what ?????

[Dick W.]

Re: Inferior Chinese Products

And then there are those vendors, with all intentions of having a quality reproduction made, inadvertedly furnished a sample (s) with flaws in them. Won't call any names, but he did not think it was funny to have several hundred pieces that are all flawed. I get a good laugh out of him every time I bring it up.

[Stephen B.]

Re: Inferior Chinese Products

IBTL

Hay Michael
I'm old and out of the loop.Could you fill me in on what IBTL translates to in English.I don't speak Canadian,but I do like that C-3 of yours.
Stephen Barrett (21558) 59,66,71,73

[Jim D.]

Re: Inferior Chinese Products

In Before The Lock. Often posted on forums when someone thinks a moderator is going to lock the thread.

[Rob M.]

Re: Inferior Chinese Products

Stephen,

I know exactly what you mean. It would be nice to have an on-line spreadsheet or survey form for us to rank and rate vendors. I came across something like this on another forum a while back, but all of the info was old/dated.

Regards,
Tony

What about the vendor rating system on the C1, C2 and C3 Registries: http://www.c1registry.com/index.php?job=ShowSuppliers

(Note: if you log into the Registry of choice and press the Vendor Rating button you can add ratings yourself as well!!!)

[Michael W.]

Re: Inferior Chinese Products

Hay Michael
I'm old and out of the loop.Could you fill me in on what IBTL translates to in English.I don't speak Canadian,but I do like that C-3 of yours.
Stephen Barrett (21558) 59,66,71,73

As Jim said, 'In Before The Lock'.

I really don't think this particular topic belongs on here especially when the flag waving chest thumpers start putting a political slant on it. The fact that it's all been said several times before makes it that much more unnecessary.

[Bill C.]

Re: Inferior Chinese Products

Jack H. is spot on . We in this club are a minority. Most people consider parts as just parts. We are the purists. We are trying to preserve factory originality. Most people don't see it that way. On numerous occasions I have sent parts back. But,I enjoy the research to keep it original and that is why I belong to the NCRS and use the TDB.

[Ronald L.]

Re: Inferior Chinese Products

The real cost to tool something exactly can easily be 2 or 3 times more than making a 50% accurate part. China is all into it for the buck, as are those that sell their parts. Reality is we are such a small minority that the cost to produce doen't pay out, ever. As a part of that volumes are so low that you can't get parts suppliers to even talk to you for 500 or 1000 pieces. They want to set up & run hundreds to thousands a day, even in the most remote low volume areas of the world and the time and hassle to make a tool and set it up to run one day just does not compute into a rational business decision. And here we are talking about hardware, I am very interested to see what happens down the road with the highly integrated electronics we have now, C4's and up are going to be a hassle one day to restore.

[Stephen B.]

Re: Inferior Chinese Products

Gentlemen
Shall we continue the conversation.I was watching the History Channel and what should appear, but a program entitled Made In America.Even I was surprised at the diversity of products that were still being built in America with great pride,high quality and at a profit.Can you believe it ? They are New Balance (used exclusively by the US military), Segway, Discovery Foods, (Get this one they are the largest producer of Chinese dumplings in the World), K'nex Toys, Annin Flag Makers(They make all the American Flags for our military.Boeing, Wilson(they make every football that the NFL uses).Every one of these company's could very easily move all or part of their operations off shore,but they don't.The owners had a sense of pride and patriotism,and were pleased that they could still provide jobs for their employees.
Am I flag waving and chest pounding you ask? Damn Straight.Part of driving the great AMERICAN Sports Car is pride in the fact that it is one of most recognized and coveted Automobiles on the planet.It's also made in Bowling Ky. by a bunch of very proud AMERICANS. As far as the chest pounding goes I never met a Corvette owner yet that didn't have a bit vanity about himself.How many times have you driven by a large window and looked over at your reflection, and said to youself. Hey self your lookin good. I'm Guilty as charged.
Stephen Barrett (21558) 59,66,71,73

[Dick W.]

Re: Inferior Chinese Products

Tooling cost in the US is astronomical. I priced tooling for a small, 2 piece bracket, very simple dies. 15 years ago it was over $12k, and this was for short run tooling. Estimated sales of the part was <150. There was no way that you could amortize the tooling cost. Another vendor asked me to go in with him and repro mid-year bumpers, using the GM dies. They were in very sad shape at that time. Estimate for repairing the dies was in excess of $250k.

[Ronald L.]

Re: Inferior Chinese Products

Dick, the world is changing, it is in certain instances cheaper here now for small stuff than in China. They are so big in China with high volume 500k per year and higher that they don't want this stuff any more.

[Frederick W.]

Re: Inferior Chinese Products

Flag-waving chest-thumpers?
you better believe it, until the day they put me in the ground.

To the issue of Chinese products, our problem is simply labor costs. I am no economist, but I don't see how any manufacturing can remain in this country if we have to compete with third world labor costs. If there are hard working Chinese men and women who will toil in factories for pennies an hour, then that is where manufacturing will be done. Some of the products will excellent, some poor quality, some in between, but ALL will be made outside the U.S.

I don't think it has to do with Chinese factories being unable to produce quality products. Rather, the market simply demands the cheapest product which will, of course, more often than not be lesser quality.

The only way to preserve American manufacturing is to place large tariffs on imported Chinese products to level the playing field. We won't do that for fear of the Chinese doing the same to our products and cutting us out of the worlds fastest growing and someday largest market. It's a Catch-22.