Part quality declining?

I wouldn't quite go that far. They got their citizens to work for peanuts. That's an accomplishment that could never be achieved here.

It's not exactly like these workers had a choice. "Relocated" from the dirt farm where many were/are borderline starving to the overcrowded bunk beds with other factory workers in cities like Ningbo, Quindago, Shenzen, etc... Gotta be cognizant of your communist social score or else!!
 
It's not exactly like these workers had a choice. "Relocated" from the dirt farm where many were/are borderline starving to the overcrowded bunk beds with other factory workers in cities like Ningbo, Quindago, Shenzen, etc... Gotta be cognizant of your communist social score or else!!
I'm not saying I approve of how they do it. I am saying we cannot compete with all but forced work camp labor costs.
 
Part quality has been going downhill for years since manufacturers shifted their production to China. I have yet to see anything superior in quality come from China.
I remember the good ole days when parts were made in Mexico.
I wouldn't quite go that far. They got their citizens to work for peanuts. That's an accomplishment that could never be achieved here.
That's only if they are working in a peanut factory, some of them have no other option than to do what they are told in the modern day manufacturing concentration camps. How about this for Chinese exports...ever buy peeled or minced garlic and there was no product of the USA or Mexico label on the packaging? Well it probably came from china where it was cultivated in sewer water and then peeled orally by Chinese prisoners because their fingernails were burned off due to extensive exposure to the acids in garlic.


Yep. I read, maybe 20 years ago, that Walmart all by itself was buying 13% of China's total yearly GDP output. Walmart made China.
Politicians allowed it to happen.
 
SO many good points made so far... As a person who works in a manufacturing facility it pains me to see so much disposable items. No one wants to take a moment to adjust anything, lube anything, clean anything. Most people wouldn't even know how. It blows my mind how many people come in my company with "experience" in the field but cannot figure out a tape measure. The worst is most cannot use a normal dial caliper, they can read a digital, but an old school dial caliper confuses them.
 
Pandemic special…

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Another thing is today people are more attracted to fluff, than they are basic simple quality and, "built to last". Put a plain ordinary top and bottom, 2 door freezer / fridge, with a superior guarantee, next to a fully fluffed model with more doors and compartments than a SUV, with water and ice in the door, super fast ice maker, built in $50.00 filter that requires changing every 15 minutes. Along with a TV screen that let's you "see through" the door to see what's inside.

And they'll go for it hands down over simple and, "built to last", every time. Cars are the same way. Most everyone want them, "loaded". The more buttons, windows, switches, power this and that, the better. More parts = more problems = more money all the way around. Sure the engines will last longer...... Assuming anyone keeps them long enough to find out.

But the point being, is there are more avenues for cheap, crappy parts to make their way into products today. Add to that the fact that today they design electronics into most everything, every way possible, that used to be simple and mechanical. Still more chance for failure, with additional complexity and cost. I'm not condemning people for this, it's just the way we roll today. Hell, I'm as guilty of it as anyone.

I had an expensive Samsung fridge / freezer that went through 3 ice makers at $350.00 a pop in just a little over 6 years. That's 2 years average each. Preposterous, but true. Not to mention that each one took over 3 weeks to get.

We've become a society addicted to technology. And we and LOVE the latest and the greatest. When Mikhail Kalashnikov designed the AK-47, one of the most successful battle rifles ever built, he said that he built it around the principal that, "Things that are complex are not useful, things that are useful are simple". That philosophy is long gone in today's society.
Who ever thought it was a good idea to plumb water of all things into a fridge in the first place? I mean, the majority of problems in modern refridgerators IS the ice maker. I just bought a fridge 18 months ago and it's almost impossible to buy one WITHOUT an ice maker (more like ice breaker). I ended up taking it out and sold it on Ebay. Prefer more space in the freezer.
 
I don't think there are ANY products out there, (not only the automotive variety), that haven't fallen victim to the whole lesser quality argument. There is a thread in this forum about how crappy home appliances have gotten over the last few years. Not to mention plumbing fixtures, small gas powered lawn and garden equipment, many types of tools, etc.

A better question would be, is their ANYTHING built better these days? There is still "good stuff" available out there. But you have to hunt for it, then pay a small fortune when and if you find it.
When it comes to plumbing fixtures , faucets . There are a few German brands that are extremely good . Will last a lifetime , that are repairable .
 
There was a study done years ago and they found that China can produce parts of the same quality as US made ones, but at the same price!
So there would be no advantage to manufacture there, also WE are guilty with our obsession of low price, hardly anyone today is shopping by quality. WE made China's economy, or rather Sam Walton started it, China did nothing on its own if not only stealing manufacturing methods and secrets.
Not only you (USA) but the rest of the world too.
 
I used to work in Automotive industry. For many years I was in Sales & Project Management for a metal stampings company. I did the calculations to determine the cost of each stamped part, the cost of the tooling for stamping that part, and gathered all the prices for the painting or plating, packaging and shipment to the Tier 1, 2 or other. One thing that was pretty consistent for our manufacturing plant in SW Ontario was that labour costs that went into the piece price were usually less than 5% of the total piece price.

So when all these plants were relocating to Mexico (and we also had one in Puebla MX) it was always summarized to be about the lower cost of people in these other countries. But if you look at the costs closely, if the low cost country pays 5 to 10% of what a Canadian would earn per hour, the savings for moving to Mexico are only going to be around 4.2 % overall simply because the cost of raw materials is the same, the cost of the press is the same, the cost of tooling is basically the same. However, the problem was that if your customer was in Mexico, you had to also be there otherwise the cost of trucking to the customer's door was INSANE. So you had big Tier 1's and OEM's move to these low cost countries, that meant that if you wanted to keep selling to them, you also had to be in their vicinity.

We are flooded with car parts made in China because our traditional USA or German parts suppliers were chasing future sales to the Chinese car buying market in a part of the world that would be very hard & too expensive to supply from USA or German based vendors because of the high cost of freight to China.

I strongly believe that China INC subsidizes the cost of shipping to other parts of the world to ensure that China INC continues to be a viable low cost supplier.

To the notion that made in China = poor quality, this is very outdated but there is a truth that a part can be made to meet a price point that would not be so easy to do in the TS16949 / ISO or other quality standard monitored manufacturing.
 
Pay the price and buy OEM. This will greatly increase your odds of having a successful repair.
Some OEM parts are ridiculously priced, for example, Hyundai OEM brake drums are $270 A PIECE, for a piece of steel I'm just going to grind/rust away in 80k, vs a $22 Raybestos, no thanks. Also just replaced a rear bearing assembly, $100 for the Korean made Moog part vs $300 for the OEM. The Chinese made Duralast control arms I installed 15k ago are doing quite well, and made the vehicle ride and handle like brand new. The Chinese made API Pro Struts I had installed almost 100k ago have held up to the abusive New England roads better than the OEM Mando struts (which were practically blown out at 70k) the vehicle came with. On the flip side, the Monroe OEspectrum shocks I had installed 40k ago have sucked since day one.

Just because something's made in China does not automatically mean it's junk, it depends on the company selling the product overseeing production and quality control. The key is to avoid unbranded crap like Ultra power (rock auto brand) or too good to be true eBay specials.
 
I think that if my cr-v ever needs parts such as suspension or steering related and engine, I will be looking to see if racing part supliers make the racing version of that part. Summit may replace NAPA as my goto parts source.
 
Who ever thought it was a good idea to plumb water of all things into a fridge in the first place? I mean, the majority of problems in modern refridgerators IS the ice maker. I just bought a fridge 18 months ago and it's almost impossible to buy one WITHOUT an ice maker (more like ice breaker). I ended up taking it out and sold it on Ebay. Prefer more space in the freezer.

You have to remember when ice makers first started showing up in refrigerator / freezers in the early 70's, most ALL were plumbed with flared 1/4" copper tubing, and were very simple. The "kits" to install them came with a 12 foot roll of it, because you had to run water from underneath the sink, and usually drill a hole through the side of one of the kitchen cabinets. Because back then homes were not built with a water valve in the wall behind the fridge, like they are today.

They had a manual arm you lifted up or down, to turn them on and off. If you left them alone the arm would automatically be pushed up when the bin was full of ice.

When you wanted ice you went into the freezer and got some. No trays to clean and mess with, or having to fill and empty all the time. They used 1/4" copper lines because back in the 70's that was code in most all municipalities. Plastic under pressure was not allowed. Let alone the thin walled, flexible plastic tubing that is used almost exclusively today.

These ice makers were very reliable and cheap. (I paid $50.00 for a Kenmore back then, and all it did was run and make ice....... For 14 straight years).

Today "push together" plastic lines and fittings under pressure are EVERYWHERE, as is water damage in homes from blown supply lines. The ice makers are huge, complex, and expensive. Now they involve doors that open and close to allow the ice to drop through directly into the glass.

Also, most employ a grinder for "crushed ice", along with even more plumbing and valves, to accommodate a chilled water tank, brand specific water filter, and dispenser in the door. More lines, more valves, push on or twist water filters = more leaks and potential failure. Not to mention the prices have gone through the roof on these things.

Once again they took a good idea, combined with a simple design that did nothing but work, all for a reasonable price. And over engineered the crap out of it, cheapened it up wherever they possibly could, and in the process made it expensive, unreliable, and prone to failure. And all of it comes at a insanely ridiculous price. Welcome to the future.
 
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Agree 100% that parts quality is declining. Bought a Delphi mass air flow sensor for my Volvo and it crapped out about 6 months later. Cleaned up the original Bosch unit with proper solvent and reinstalled it. Three years later still working. Replaced the oil filter on my Ford with the correct Motorcraft filter and after 2K miles it began leaking. I buy them in bulk from RA so replaced with another from my stash. Only the second time in 50+ years of oil changes that had a leaky filter. Remember the first on was a Fram.

Imagine once these EVs need replacement batteries and electronics what the quality might be like.

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I just had a thread on this exact thing, rebuilt engine with every sensor replaced except the MAF and sure enough it crapped out in 50 miles, the replacement Delphi didn't make it 6 miles. OE has gone over 300 miles now without a hitch.
 
You have to remember when ice makers first started showing up in refrigerator / freezers in the early 70's, most ALL were plumbed with flared 1/4" copper tubing, and were very simple...

This is a very good point. With plumbing in general, metal lines are superior but they're labor intensive to fit where as plastic tubing is easy to cut and fitup.

From my experience, plastic lines will get hard and brittle over time if they're exposed to any heat. I had a GE fridge that was tubed with copper externally, but the interior icemaker connections were all plastic. One section ran close to the compressor, which was hot, so over time that section on tubing failed suddenly and left a big mess.
 
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