Quality

[BobFord]

Anybody have experience and opinions on purchasing ex. Asia.
I'm thinking of small hardware , impellers , thermocouples etc.
Recent example -impeller $60.00 local , $22.00 China and thermocouple $107.00 local , $7.00 China. Of course local Suppliers will find negatives but i'm not convinced.

[Wolfe10]

Part of your equation will be "risk/reward".


A part of dubious quality that could take out your engine.......


A part that is not critical and easily replaced.............


No single answer would be reasonable.

[StuM]

The local supplier wil probably be selling something made in Asia .

[BobFord]

Wolfe , Stu- I agree with your sentiments . Recent experience for me is the thermocouple ( for a gas fired oven ) Darned thing looks identical by photos . I'll give this a try as it's far from a 'critical', part.

[Rumrace]

Well the bottom line is sometimes the knockoff is the original. That said I don’t believe there are 5 manufactures in China whom have our best interests in heart.for years I’ve watched them with fraudulent CSA UL SAE CE labels on obvious junk in the lowest grade metal imagined. Dangerous plastics not blended correctly. Great stuff we pretty much transferred ever toxic manufacturing job there. Yaaah us. It’s not scumbag Chinese creeps making soft Nicholson files it’s the dickheads in Cooper Industries in Houston that killed 2 million jobs to cash n with fickle investors and sent their jobs to china who have no idea how to make real metals.
I bet the last “ never heard of that brand” cool thing you bought does not have a real CSA UL or CE file. They cost 200,000$ each to carry. Just print a fake one and Walmart is happy.
SAE are saps they don’t qualify one import but beat the crap out of domestic manufacturers. UL CSA SAE are independent labs which need to police to have continued credibility. Folks like Sony are going home to get back to quality.
Canada Customs stopped some batteries at the boarder from China. We now have a tax so it’s cheaper to buy a Chinese product from China than US. Protects American jobs and reduces the fraudulent product filling the garbage dumps. Nicknamed the enablers tax comes with a Canada Post “ we can over charge too” and a customs “ do you think you’re Marco Polo” go away tariff. It’s pretty cool I’m loving it.
Bonus European boats and cars cost less just in time to add more luxury tax. Japan Toyota Hydrogen Boats are going to be a hit cause we have free trade with Japan too.
Buy local pay 10X as much have it machined local.
I don’t believe a word a Chinese product claims.
I do like eSun and Polymaker plastics many of which are made in china to some very high tolerances from European companies. It’s rare to see the consistent straight up quality. More like a young Japan or even Chinas original roots in quality. It’s refreshing after 20 years of frauds from multinationals dodging real costs and messing up perceived values.
I dodge China as much as I can with personal long business history against them.

[ItDepends]

I'll start with the obvious. It is certainly POSSIBLE to get high quality product out of China. We all own quality products that were made there, even those who don't want to admit it.

But... quality costs. It does. When something is WAY cheaper than it "should be" there is a reason. When you buy from a random supplier in Asia, without anybody else vetting them, you are taking a risk. Sometimes the risk is worth the potentially large savings. Other times, the risk might be bigger than you expect...

When I was managing a fleet of charter boats we had a starter fail on a 2 cylinder Yanmar. The OEM starter was somewhere north of $300. I found a Chinese supplier selling one for about $70. Cheaper than we could even get the old one rebuilt for. I offered the option to the boat owner, and he jumped all over the cheaper option. We installed it. It fit perfectly, and worked. Since we had a bunch of these engines in the fleet, and it was so cheap we ordered an extra one as a shelf inventory spare. Even if these lasted half as long as the OEM part, we would be way ahead. What could go wrong?

Three weeks after the starter was installed, the cast housing around the pinion gear shattered, dropping chunks of metal into the bell housing while the engine was running. The destruction was horrific, and immediate, and the repair cost about 10 times the savings on the starter. I threw out the one on the shelf.

[skipperpete]

I have a MacBook Air, an iPad Pro and an older iphone all made in China and all working flawlessly. I bought Cat 3306 engine from SDEC in Shanghai for $16,000 and a 335hp NT855 Cummins later, all still running well. Engines from India went rather badly and we lost a cat 3406.....total writeoff at 1,000 hrs ......Doosan, an OEM from Hyundai makes small Marine engines up to about 1,000hp and one of my customers common rail Doosan engines died an early death at around 2,000 hrs with numerous points of failure including worn out rings.
Interestingly, I’ve never seen aftermarket copy of a Volvo Penta despite the fact that their larger marine and automotive engines are pretty damned good.
More recently I met a yacht owner from Thailand who had his Perkins 4-108 rebuilt with a new crankshaft which very quickly BROKE.... unheard of with 4-108’s in my experience. This was a brand new crankshaft but I have no idea where he bought it.
So yes, there is good and bad in the OEM copy game. Just Beware.

[goboatingnow]

Originally Posted by skipperpete

I have a MacBook Air, an iPad Pro and an older iphone all made in China and all working flawlessly. I bought Cat 3306 engine from SDEC in Shanghai for $16,000 and a 335hp NT855 Cummins later, all still running well. Engines from India went rather badly and we lost a cat 3406.....total writeoff at 1,000 hrs ......Doosan, an OEM from Hyundai makes small Marine engines up to about 1,000hp and one of my customers common rail Doosan engines died an early death at around 2,000 hrs with numerous points of failure including worn out rings.
Interestingly, I’ve never seen aftermarket copy of a Volvo Penta despite the fact that their larger marine and automotive engines are pretty damned good.
More recently I met a yacht owner from Thailand who had his Perkins 4-108 rebuilt with a new crankshaft which very quickly BROKE.... unheard of with 4-108’s in my experience. This was a brand new crankshaft but I have no idea where he bought it.
So yes, there is good and bad in the OEM copy game. Just Beware.

Volvo group don’t make automotive engines. The car company is entirely separate

[skipperpete]

Originally Posted by goboatingnow

Volvo group don’t make automotive engines. The car company is entirely separate

By “Automotive” I was referring to Volvo heavy vehicle engines, not cars.

[goboatingnow]

Originally Posted by skipperpete

By “Automotive” I was referring to Volvo heavy vehicle engines, not cars.

Yes there truck and heavy equipment engines are very good. The TAMD6x series is a fantastic marine engine