Poor quality replacement components

Joined
Apr 24, 2018
Posts
912
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Location
France
Funster No
53,567
MH
2001 Hymer B544
Exp
Since 1992
I’ve noticed that many of the parts I have bought, sometimes from real dealers (not dodgy online operations) are utter garbage.

A thread for everyone to add the stuff they have found it just ain’t worth buying.

I don’t know if the stuff in my 20yr old Hymer was original, but I know that the stuff I am now replacing with it being under continuous use has not previously failed in our 5yrs of ownership, so what was fitted, whether OE or not, was at least reasonable.

This year alone, I bought a replacement for the OE turbo vent, something from Amazon, with a smoked single skin vent and remote control. It was utter rubbish and failed within 2 weeks of winter operation.

3 months ago I bought a replacement shower room mixer tap with white hose from a dealer in France when the original finally started to drip, it cost over €100 euro, the switch has already failed!

I bought a kitchenette tap, just the spout from a respected caravan dealer in Harrietsham UK just after Christmas when the OE started to leak at a seam. It cost just £10 (just the spout), it has failed, started to leak in the same way after just 8 weeks.

Last year I bought a Truma Aventa Compact AC unit, it failed after 6months with a dodgy sensor, though the replacement part was sent under warranty thankfully.

Last year I bought (ebay) what was advertised as a 1500W continuous, 3kW peak invertor. It failed when a 1.2kW microwave load was on it, pulling 100A. I took it apart and it had a hard soldered internal 80A fuse - it could never have supplied more than 900W at 12V continuously.

It seems that many of the habitation stuff being sold is utter garbage.
 
I don't think it's just motorhome related, I find lots of stuff these days is designed to fail 🤬🤬🤬
Bang on, stuff isn’t made to last like it used to be

We need to gradually get away from this throw away society and make stuff to last, the 3 Rs
Repair, Reuse, Recycle.

Instead of the the 6 Bs

Broken, Buy another. Broken, Buy Another. Broken, Buy Another.

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Last edited:
It is a challenge. I'd rather pay a bit more and only do the job once, but it's quite tough to figure out if an item is actually better quality for the money or if it is exactly the same thing being sold for twice the price. Then there's the problem of counterfeits (especially on auction sites or 3rd party sellers on Amazon), plus the bean counters looking for cost reduction in production for the genuine parts.
Throw in some iffy QA processes in low cost manufacturing countries and you are onto a loser.
 
You have to wonder why people go out to make these rubbish items, when you look at them they mostly contain almost the same stuff and take as much putting together as the real thing ,why don't they do it properly .
But I suppose if they did that folks wouldn't have to keep coming back for another.
 
Almost everything is made in China. The good stuff and the bad stuff. Even the stuff not made in China is made from stuff from China and just assembled elsewhere.

Trying to avoid Chinese stuff is pointless because it it's not an indication of quality... and you're probably just fooling yourself anyway.
 
It is also the sellers putting price pressure on the Chinese manufacturers, getting them to make something as cheaply as possible.
 
The modus operandi from those on line market place trader's is , set up an on store, sell absolute tat for a few months till the negative feed back outweighs the phoney positive feedback. Close down that outlet, start again.
They run rings around this countries regulations by registering at some unsuspecting victims house as their headquarters for this country. The householder receives thousands of letters a DAY from new businesses registering, and complaints plus summonses for monies to be paid back, which they never are. The relevant authorities are fully conversant with the scam, but all play the blame game with other authorities so as they don't actually have engage with the offenders and sort it out. Typical UK bureaucracy.
Mike.

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It is a challenge. I'd rather pay a bit more and only do the job once, but it's quite tough to figure out if an item is actually better quality for the money or if it is exactly the same thing being sold for twice the price. Then there's the problem of counterfeits (especially on auction sites or 3rd party sellers on Amazon), plus the bean counters looking for cost reduction in production for the genuine parts.
Throw in some iffy QA processes in low cost manufacturing countries and you are onto a loser.
But unless enough others feel the same there won't necessarily be an option of a posher version to buy. I've actually on the flip side have bought some cheaper power tools that have actually been very good.
 
I watch a few of those back street manufacturer videos on YouTube from Pakistan, they were making aluminium bodied hydraulic gear pumps (something I frequently use) They were melting down random aluminium scrap, anything from bicycle frames and cylinder heads to old road signs, yes it was all aluminium, but very little of it would have had the desired properties for being cast into high wear/high pressure components. There was no quality control taking place whatsoever and there is no way the end user would know this until they'd parted with their hard earned, fitted the unit then have it fail ? Some of the items they made were being packaged straight into "Made in China" labelled cartons too.
I'd rather buy decent second-hand stuff over cheap Chinesium any day, but sometimes you have no choice ?
 
The problem with Chinese stuff is you can't rely on design or packaging to know if it's good. A Western brand might commission a Chinese factory to make a part. But the Chinese government positively encourages duplication of factories. And the duplicates often cut standards to reduce costs. So you buy an item. You don't know if it's:
  • The legit part from the original factory
  • A legit part but sold on the side
  • A perfectly good copy (with or without fake branding)
  • A below par copy (with or without fake branding)
  • A re-engineered copy with substitutions to make it super cheap (with or without fake branding)
To further complicate, when manufacturers are assembling products and sourcing from China, they face the same problems. So your high priced 'made in Xxx' item might contain knock-off components.
 
It is also the sellers putting price pressure on the Chinese manufacturers, getting them to make something as cheaply as possible.

Typically a Chinese manufacturer will offer at least 2 samples at different wholesale price points, available to order by the UK importer. The highest price sample probably would be the best quality, but guess which one will be selected for import to the UK.
 
Is there a common thread with these products e.g. made in Xxxxx? Just
We need to gradually get away from this throw away society and make stuff to last, the 3 Rs
Repair, Reuse, Recycle.
We need to get away from our reliance on Chinese manufacturing. Not just because of crap fakes but also because the are now regarded as the biggest military threat to the western world. And we make ourselves weaker as we make them richer

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I watch a few of those back street manufacturer videos on YouTube from Pakistan, they were making aluminium bodied hydraulic gear pumps (something I frequently use) They were melting down random aluminium scrap, anything from bicycle frames and cylinder heads to old road signs, yes it was all aluminium, but very little of it would have had the desired properties for being cast into high wear/high pressure components. There was no quality control taking place whatsoever and there is no way the end user would know this until they'd parted with their hard earned, fitted the unit then have it fail ? Some of the items they made were being packaged straight into "Made in China" labelled cartons too.
I'd rather buy decent second-hand stuff over cheap Chinesium any day, but sometimes you have no choice ?

I remember a documentary about the source of the surgical instruments that the NHS buys. All made in dozens of tiny dirty backstreet workshops in Pakistan.

Quite a contrast to the mental picture we would have of an immaculate dust-free high tech factory like a microchip plant.
 
We need to get away from our reliance on Chinese manufacturing. Not just because of crap fakes but also because the are now regarded as the biggest military threat to the western world. And we make ourselves weaker as we make them richer
Too late for that. They now have a rich enough society to maintain much of their manufacturing just from buying their own stuff. Their consumers are at a similar standard of living to us and they buy the same crud as we do. And they're getting good at designing their own stuff too.

Once they hit the same standard as the west, their costs will be similar and they'll no longer be able to drive their incredible growth by milking exports because they won't be cheap anymore. Which is going to cause massive instability as they are forced to adjust.

The military threat is their desire for Taiwan and the fact it makes all the world's high end chips. When they start to hit the growth brick wall, it might drive them to invade.
 
I think you will find made in china is the problem!
No, the public are the reason - the bulk of the buying public want 'cheap' whether it's a tap or carrots.
How many times do we read posts asking or recommending where to buy the cheapest this or that?
China is perfectly capable of producing better quality products but they rely on volume to be 'cheap'.
 
The military threat is their desire for Taiwan and the fact it makes all the world's high end chips. When they start to hit the growth brick wall, it might drive them to invade.

When the PRC does control all the high end chip factories it will be geopolitics game over for the USA and NATO.

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Both the EU and US are pouring billions into creating home grown chip foundries. Estimates are it'll take $30bn and 10 years minimum to get up to speed.
 
the industry term MTBF is what drives this, Mean Time Between Failures. Products are designed with sufficient quality to just outlast any warranty, to ensure further business, selling a replacement
 
Both the EU and US are pouring billions into creating home grown chip foundries. Estimates are it'll take $30bn and 10 years minimum to get up to speed.

At last they seem to be waking up. Too late, perhaps?
 
I bought a kitchenette tap, just the spout from a respected caravan dealer in Harrietsham UK just after Christmas when the OE started to leak at a seam. It cost just £10 (just the spout), it has failed, started to leak in the same way after just 8 weeks.
I had a similar problem, I think it put stress on the mould line when it’s pushed on.
So I bought a better quality , all brass tap for the kitchen
 
One has to be careful about assuming that everything made in China is cr+p.

As has been said in an earlier post, they make very good & very bad and all in between.

One has to remember when the Japanese first appeared on the 'market' most of their stuff were cheaper copies and suspect.
At the time, I was earning my living as a Heavy Plant Engineer, and their stuff was cheaper because it was not over-engineered and didn't need to, to be to pass their own countries standard.
(In the UK, a 20ton crane had to lift 30tons. In Japan, a 20ton crane had to lift 24tons approx.)

There was also some innovative engineering based upon the rectified mistakes of other manufacturers and now they are some of the most reliable product in the world.

When I buy parts on the internet, the first thing look for is, has the seller got a good reputation and a shop (or branch) within 50mls of me where,
if its an expensive buy, I can see/feel it and can return it and kick-up a fuss both, in shop and on Social Media'
.
I'm also a believer in shopping, & life, in 'You get what you pay for' (If you buy cheaply, expect cr*p, but not always, thank goodness :giggle: )

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Both the EU and US are pouring billions into creating home grown chip foundries. Estimates are it'll take $30bn and 10 years minimum to get up to speed.

but I thought, from a recent report I read, that in China, it had the largest deposits of the chips 'Precious metals' and has the world (to a degree) by the short & curly's ? :unsure:
 
One has to remember when the Japanese first appeared on the 'market' most of their stuff were cheaper copies and suspect.
At the time, I was earning my living as a Heavy Plant Engineer, and their stuff was cheaper because it was not over-engineered and didn't need to, to be to pass their own countries standard.
(In the UK, a 20ton crane had to lift 30tons. In Japan, a 20ton crane had to lift 24tons approx.)
But that's partly because they learnt that if they built quality supply chains where they knew about sub components, and they had a quality build process, they didn't need a huge safety margin. They didn't have to make such big allowances for crappy bolts and dodgy or missed welds.
 
but I thought, from a recent report I read, that in China, it had the largest deposits of the chips 'Precious metals' and has the world (to a degree) by the short & curly's ? :unsure:
Chips are mainly silicon, which is abundant. The precious metal volumes are very small and not a volume constraint. The difficulty building top end chips is the lithography technology used. The only company that makes these machines is in Europe. There are so few high end chip plants that there's not a big enough market to have two suppliers. One machine churns out tens of millions of chips.
 
But that's partly because they learnt that if they built quality supply chains where they knew about sub components, and they had a quality build process, they didn't need a huge safety margin. They didn't have to make such big allowances for crappy bolts and dodgy or missed welds.

Can't say about cars, I had nothing to do with them but it was said that garages had to have 2 complete cars in parts before they could open.
All I can say, is that I never had any bolts snap when lifting 20ton or on the giant bulldozers and earth moving trucks. :unsure:
 
Chips are mainly silicon, which is abundant. The precious metal volumes are very small and not a volume constraint. The difficulty building top end chips is the lithography technology used. The only company that makes these machines is in Europe. There are so few high end chip plants that there's not a big enough market to have two suppliers. One machine churns out tens of millions of chips.

but wasn't the excuse given, by the suppliers of M/H's over the past couple of years for the lateness of their vehicles that, because of Covid, they could not get the Precious Metal to make the chips, from China? :unsure:

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