Had my first bad experience with a China made part

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Ross

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Sep 10, 2002
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Bismarck, ND
I have had good luck with China made rotors for years. So when one of the rear wheel bearings/hubs on my son's mitsubishi made sebring went out, I decided to use the cheap China made ones on E-bay. I paid about $90 for two rear hubs, made in China. They appeared to be well built when I installed them, but after 5,000 miles one of them was humming really bad. I took it out this weekend and your could feel the roughness when you turned it. I replaced it with the good remaining used OEM hub that I saved.

The China one comes with a lifetime warranty, but I am unsure if I trust them enough to try them again.

I am so glad that I saved the good used one as a spair.
 
I would return it for warranty even if you don't plan to use it. Too many junk china parts get thrown away without being returned. HF and others can keep selling junk as long as customers make it easy and eat the cost.
 
Hey Ross , I work a o'reilly auto parts and I can tell you there is a big difference between made in china and made in the USA parts. Not just from a quality perspective but also a performance perspective. We get almost 3X the returns on chinese made parts as we do American . I see these parts 10x a day and there is a incredible difference in quality , especially in suspension components; I warn all bitoger's to avoid these chinese parts. My company sell good pars as long as they are made here in the USA aka Wagner,Moog and National which are top quality brands all owned by Federal Mogul. Ross as far as wheel bearings/Hubs are concerned I would honestly ditch them for a quality made unit , spend that extra dough and never think about it again!
 
That's why on my latest rotor purchase I went with EBC rotors. Most of them are still made in our mother country Britain. Figured some British-designed goods would be superior to a Chinese knockoff, at least on the rotor front. (Lucas Electrics and British Leyland notwithstanding...)
 
I read this year that there are no metal foundrys left in the United States that make brake rotors anymore. All are imported,, even the originals put on brand new cars.
 
I've always wondered about the economics of all these sub-par parts. The costs related to returns in some cases must eat into profits significantly.
 
Originally Posted By: FowVay
I read this year that there are no metal foundrys left in the United States that make brake rotors anymore. All are imported,, even the originals put on brand new cars.


Complete [censored]. I seen two truck loads of rotors leave the AB&I foundry in Oakland just today.
 
Originally Posted By: ET16
I've always wondered about the economics of all these sub-par parts. The costs related to returns in some cases must eat into profits significantly.


Usually, warranty returns is an expense, so essentially, the price we pay for a part includes the costs associated with it potentially being returned. Therefore, net income/profits remain pretty much uneffected as long as the returns are close to the figure that the manufacturer estimated.

Ross, since you have established the hubs are junk, try to get a credit to buy something else. Unfortunately, it's going to cost you to send it back, though. That's really annoying.
 
Originally Posted By: sciphi
That's why on my latest rotor purchase I went with EBC rotors. Most of them are still made in our mother country Britain. Figured some British-designed goods would be superior to a Chinese knockoff, at least on the rotor front. (Lucas Electrics and British Leyland notwithstanding...)


Britain may be your "mother country", but it most certainly isn't mine. Screw those British baaastards.
 
I hope people ragging on Chinese made parts realize that the quality of the parts made has absolutely nothing to do with the location of the factory. The specs for these parts just get lowered to maximize profits and guess who requests these lower specs? Certainly not Chinese, it’s our part suppliers.

China makes a boat load of parts for aerospace industry, do we have planes falling out of the sky because of that?
 
To comment on KrisZ's thread, I've been in the VW business since the early 1970's. A very popular VW guy in So Cal, Gene Berg, often stated his big bore piston/cylinder sets were manufactured to his standards and cost a bit more. He further stated that manufacturers will build a product to a vendor's specifications. A lot of the differences were hard to verify, such as "maximum silicone and magnesium content" in the piston for use in an air cooled engine. One test I personally observed was during this time I was a line mechanic at a VW dealer in the Los Angeles area. Gene Berg stated manufacturers can produce the same product at various levels of quality. So I pulled two boxes of stock replacement, 85.5mm, piston/cylinder sets from the parts dept. Both boxes were Kolbenschmit P/C sets. One box was genuine VW and had this logo on the piston and the cylinder. Its piston to cylinder clearance was measured at .002". The other box, purchased thru the aftermarket sector, for use by our used car dept. The VW logo on the piston and cylinder was spot faced on the piston and die grinded off on the cylinder. The piston to cylinder clearance on this assembly measured .006". The wear limit for this part is .008" so this part is already 75 percent worn out! The price on the genuine VW part was about $240 and the aftermarket part was about $60.
I've also heard on a popular VW air cooled web site that chinese wheel bearings have quality control issues.
 
Originally Posted By: KrisZ
I hope people ragging on Chinese made parts realize that the quality of the parts made has absolutely nothing to do with the location of the factory. The specs for these parts just get lowered to maximize profits and guess who requests these lower specs? Certainly not Chinese, it’s our part suppliers.

China makes a boat load of parts for aerospace industry, do we have planes falling out of the sky because of that?


Lately more than use to be.
 
One time I replaced the worn out OEM front wheel bearing on my 1988 Mercury Cougar with a Chinese part (lifetime warranty--how bad can it be?).

It took about 10K miles and that bearing's rollers suddenly turned to chunky peanut butter and ruined the spindle. I still have the "bearing butter" in a little box so I can show it to people who think they will save money by going cheap on critical items that hold the car together.

Scary. I switched to Timken and SKF and mever looked back (never needed to).
 
Last edited:
Originally Posted By: KrisZ
I hope people ragging on Chinese made parts realize that the quality of the parts made has absolutely nothing to do with the location of the factory. The specs for these parts just get lowered to maximize profits and guess who requests these lower specs? Certainly not Chinese, it’s our part suppliers.

China makes a boat load of parts for aerospace industry, do we have planes falling out of the sky because of that?


Actually even IF the item produced in China is made in a well known branded factory, there is epic corruption and graft that is part of the culture of doing business in China...I wouldn't be surprised at all if a supposedly quality specced part from China is not up to par because of the country where it is made.

I try and avoid buying any product made in a slave wage country. Period.
 
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