Poor quality replacement components

[Guigsy]

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?

I couldn't get bits for my pushbike for 6 months. There were supply issues on even common commodities.

The chip issue was because auto manufacturers saw a slump in demand at the beginning of the pandemic. So they cancelled all their chip orders. Chip fabs moved over to other products like making the dozens of supporting chips in laptops that did sell in huge numbers at that time. When car manufacturers asked for chip supply again, it took months to get their slots back. And the fabs are enjoying the diversity of customers, so they aren't giving the same numbers as they did before.

 

[Guigsy]

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.

That's because they had a safety margin to account for potentially sub-par parts or poor manufacturing. Engineering is all about assessing risk to determine how much you need to over build stuff.

 

[dawsey]

The Chinese have an expression which directly translated means “if you pay a penny you get something worth a penny” - similar I guess to the English expression “you get what you pay for”

With so much being produced in China, and logistics and supply lines being so long, with numerous middle men (exporters, shippers, importers, distributors and retailers) all taking their slice, plus various import duties and VAT, perhaps it’s unsurprising that the thing that cost a penny to make (and is worth a penny) in China ends up costing £10 in a
shop in the UK.

 

[Guigsy]

... and it still undercuts the locally produced equivalent.