Asian junk

[dinanm3atl]

I dunno. Those mishimoto(sp?) are in a lot of swapped cars and a lot of tracked E36 vehicles that I know of. I don't know of a single problem to date.

[evil_twin]

I have one in my car. I love it.

[Massive Lee]

what do you have against asians Lee? lol

Nothing. I like dim sums ;-)

[evil_twin]

Yah, if you like spending THAT much money hahah.

[blunttech]

what do you have against asians Lee? lol

Blunt, that header looks good. So is that header for the m/s5x swap for e30s?

yes its for twincam e30's

[MikeK]

If the Chinese manufacturer have the OE contracts in Asia and OE know how to produce parts, I personally don't think it is a big deal.

[evil_twin]

Hmmm, I wonder how fitment with that manifold is... I still can't wait to put Otis's manifold on.

[Massive Lee]

While reading on my usual audio forum about Chinese audiophile equipment and greymarket, I caught this interesting post about Chinese manufacturing.

"I have been following this post and thought I would chime in. First let me say that the sound quality of the products mentioned are excellent. I have had the opportunity to be invited by the Chinese government to China twice to teach the concept of Quality Management and Assurance to industry managers from a wide cross-section of industries including some electronics manufacturers. Back then, meeting CSA and UL standards was next to impossible you have no idea how much product was being blown up trying to pass the certification tests.

The problem I have seen is the temptation to copy a product they are making for a brand name using good but wider tolerance components for local consumption. These inevitably make it to North America at lower cost which robs the brand name of sales. One that comes to mind is copies of Vincent equipment being sold under another name. These are in fact made on the same line after the Vincent production run is completed using components that Vincent would never condone the use of. They are sold domestically to distributors who in turn re-package them and send the to anyone who wants to buy.

Don't get me wrong, these still sound good, and for the most part you would probably never actually notice the difference unless you did an A-B comparison. The problem is that this undermines the market as these products take sales away from the legitimate brand and when an owner wants to sell his brand name the buyers are attracted by "new" products selling at the same or lower prices than the owners "used" product.

The Chinese government seems so intent on dominating world markets and building their economy, things like copy-write infringement, industrial piracy, design copy etc run amuck. Without government support nothing will really change for a long time. And then there is the things we don't see in their manufacturing processes, poor work place safety records, low wages and benefits, environmentally damaging raw materials such as tin/lead solders, and fluxes. These are some of the things that drove manufacturers out of our countries and this is where the costs are saved.

In a lot of cases our thirst for "low cost" will continue to be a "force majeure" building their economy and driving ours into a hole.

I for one think very carefully before buying any offshore product that was once made locally and when I buy offshore I look for products supported locally by distributors who spend time monitoring their manufacturing partners. the best example of this would be companies like APPLE.

I spend most of my money on North American built products because of the available service, and I am giving my neighbour a chance to work and earn money to enjoy his own products. Also when I buy I don't even consider the value that I might sell it off for later, I buy to enjoy it and when I am tired of it I take what I can for it and move on.


Cheers;

Mike Churchward"