They may have different lines of parts (ie silver, gold brands etc) but they are most likely all made in China, or some other 3rd world country.
It's hard to find American made parts anymore in the aftermarket.
A major part of the "Why" is there's a difference between having a breakdown in my local area within AAA towing distance to my own house where I have access to my own tools and spare car as opposed to in the middle of an unknown locale in the dead of Winter traveling on a Christmas Eve/Day weekend.
I drove a '97 Ford Contour for 11 years without needing to carry those spare parts.
Jeff
muzician21 wrote in news:f12c4ea9-a5b5-4253-a830- snipped-for-privacy@e16g2000pri.googlegroups.com:
If you want ensure your car stays alive on a long drive, you need to keep the car maintained properly to begin with.
Here are some things that are about 1,000,000% more likely to strand you than an OEM Toyota fuel pump:
- Neglected cooling system, which includes old rad hoses
- Neglected ignition system
- Old/worn accessory-drive belts (water pump is driven off one!)
- Neglected spare-tire pressure
- No spare tire in vehicle
- No (or incomplete) emergency jack in vehicle
- Tire pressures too low
- Tires too worn.
The fuel pump is the /least/ of your worries.
Unfortunately replacing a known-good-but-old pump with a pump of unknown quality is MORE apt to cause you to have a breakdown than not.
Remember also most of these things have a bathtub curve.... either it will fail in the first thousand miles or it will last a long time. Changing things out right before a long trip is a good way to experience the early failures in a bad way.
--scott
Sure, but you could just pull into a Ford dealer and get parts when it broke down, rather than be told that it would be three weeks to get it from Germany.... if they have it already made... if not the next fab run will be in the fall some time...
--scott
For a long road trip, check: (1) When have you replaced your hoses...are they due? Long overdue? (2) Belt or belts....? (3) Battery cables ok and clean at the terminals? (4) If you have an auto trans, has it ever been services? (5) Tires???
Forget the fuel pump. If something unusual happens, stop, call AAA, and get it fixed.
You cant anticipate everything.
True. The problem is that people lump ALL Chinese made stuff into a junk pile. There is no reason why they cannot make high quality parts. It just takes a LOT better quality control and using better materials. There are some good parts made there.
The other thing is that the sources of many of the better parts are now Mexico, Canada, Europe.
I agree, just take lots of money or a couple of high limit credit cards and you will make it back home, eventually.
"Steve W." wrote in news:ie8440$htb$ snipped-for-privacy@speranza.aioe.org:
There are EXCELLENT parts made there: They are sold under the automaker's own brand, only at the automaker's franchised dealerships.
The Red Chinese are as capable as any other examples of the human species of producing quality goods, but they need to be supervised and managed by anybody other than Red Chinese nationals to be able to do it. And even then there's no guarantee the parts will be of good quality: it depends on the diligence of the non-Red-Chinese managers.
Red China is a horrible mess, and will continue to be so as long as the Communists remain at the whip.
It's always bad to underestimate your adversary. My guess is that the Chinese can manufacture a part of higher quality at a lower price than could be made in the US. The problem is that the guys ordering the parts are only interested in price, not quality. That's the breaks.
The alloy housing on my iPad in made in a most remarkable way. It's machined out of a solid billet of material. It's an expensive way to make a housing and there's not many manufacturers that would choose to do it this way. My guess is that Apple is a manufacturer that's serious about quality AND price. Choose to believe that the Chinese can only make junk if you like but it simply ain't true.
This may well be true. But, nevertheless, there is a huge demand in the market for crap. Everybody wants everything to be as cheap as possible, and when the Chinese are no longer able to make low quality junk at the lowest possible price point, we will be buying it from Nigeria or Haiti.
The reason why Chinese factories make trash is because American importers want to buy trash from them.
--scott
IME, The default setting is crap and the knob is spring loaded to return to the default the moment someone lets go of it. Will a name brand company have better stuff come out of china on average than a no-name? sure. They usually have someone holding the knob. Do some importers want crap? sure. Are there companies that expect quality but don't hold the knob? tons of them, but most have learned by now... I hope. Are some things dirt simple enough that they really can't screw them up too badly? yes.
Does made in China stuff have a place? yes. I've found myself getting made in China things when A) it's on sale such that it's extremely cheap. and B) It's something I won't use enough to justify the cost of something better made. C) It's simple enough not to screw up too badly.
In china labor is cheap. Depending on your volumes machining from a solid block can be cheaper than a casting or other tooled process to achieve the desired result. I know because I've done this.
If true, I would imagine it is because apple wanted a metal housing but die casting would be far too brittle and fragile. machining Al in china is probably far cheaper than the alternatives.
That is called capitalism. Nobobdy produces anything better than the market demands. The same principal holds true in the US. If it weren't for massive government regulation the average car sold in the US would be different than it currently is. The most popular cars might cost about $4000 and would start to fall apart as soon as you drove it from the car dealership. If you wanted a reliable car you would need to pay around $30,000 and very few people would do that voluntarily. For $30000 you would get a car that is as reliable as what you currently pay about $20K. It would cost more because fewer would be built.
-jim
No that isn't anything close to capitalism and market demand. Various companies have gone out of business and/or had their reputations destroyed because they sent manufacturing to china and didn't keep after their contract or even wholely owned factories. The market rejects that crap time and time again.
Wrong again. First, the regulation has nothing to do with how long a car lasts. It's possible to make a cheap-ass crappy car that complies with all the regulations that presently exist in the USA. Remember the Yugo? It managed to comply with all government regs of the time. The reason that cars last longer and are better is competition. Regulation aims to limit competition. That's why in highly regulated markets where government is basically choosing who gets to participate in a business you get nothing but crap. Look at the fine automobiles turned out by East Germany, the soviet union, and so on.
When a market has nothing but crap to choose from you'll find that in most if not all cases it's a market where government and government regulation and intervention has limited/eliminated competition in some way. When people are free to start their own businesses, set their own prices, etc and so forth someone will see that the market is dominated by crap or overpriced crap and do it better.
Remember China is still communist, it's the model of the world, where the political powers more or less get to decide who can have a business and who can't.
If it was cheaper to machine a part it would be because you didn't make very many pieces. My guess is that Apple has made several million iPads. I received my iPad on the first day of it's release - on a Saturday as did several hundred thousand people in the US. I'm assuming that they all were shipped directly from China. A remarkable logistical feat.
The reason you'd mill a part like that is because you wanted a strong part and price was a secondary consideration. Relatively speaking, making a part in that way is expensive both in China and America. I doubt that die casting was considered although hydroforming or forging the pieces may have been.
It's not usually the engineering departments that make the decision to move production to china. It's the people in the board rooms who think engineering(design,manufacturing, and otherwise) is a fungible commodity.
In some cases. However, for the Ipad housing I doubt there would be a process where secondary machining wasn't required. I doubt it is fully machined from standard stock in their volumes, but making a piece of consumer electronics that size with a metal housing has requirements that may force choosing from various expensive options.
Those likely were already in the US long before the release date or they flew in the first ones to make the date. It depends on how many things went wrong or how much sooner the date was pushed along the way. The lead times to get product in, through to retail distribution outlets, and finally to stores takes a rather long time in normal circumstances.
I believe that is what I wrote.
My recent machined part sourced from china is roughly 1/5 of what US vendors quoted it at. It was supposed to have been a low volume runner, but that's changed since the design phase.
Anyway, what I am seeing in photos doesn't have me convinced it's fully machined. However people must be breaking/damaging them a lot given how many places are selling replacements, both apple and knockoffs.
If that is the fact, then why are so many people buying the cheapest possible crap from China? Could it possibly be because those companies are blinded by the cost savings and not thinking about their long-term reputation or about the quality of their product?
People will go out of their way to save a penny even if it results in buying poor quality junk that falls apart. And they do it over and over again, never seeming to learn their lesson that buying junk costs more in the long run.
Unfortunately this is the case not only for the customer but for the people importing and retailing too. And, as a consequence, it makes it more difficult to find actual quality products because the market does not demand quality, the market demands low prices.
--scott
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