Made in China

[ducatilover]

You were the one who mentioned the word 'price'.

So if you had the choice between a known quality brand at $60 and a crap quality brand at $10, which would you choose?

And once again, just to clarify........

I'm not talking about foreign companies who get their product made in China if it meets their quality control standards.

I'm talking about Chinese companies producing products that have zero quality control.

I was going to point out I got lots of OEM Suzuki parts at such a fraction of the Suzuki NZ prices that it's vomit inducing. But, that's neither here nor there as they're OEM.

Some Chinese products are low quality, some aren't.
China makes many high quality products.
China also makes many low quality products.
China also makes many average quality products.

[Howie]

You were the one who mentioned the word 'price'.

So if you had the choice between a known quality brand at $60 and a crap quality brand at $10, which would you choose?

One would have to follow the example of our Government, and Big corporations and buy on initial price only, not the full life price, other wise Locomotives and Wagons would be being built in NZ.

[Katman]

1) Quality is dependent on the purpose.

That's fine if you're buying a hairbrush.

What if you're buying a set of wheel bearings for your bike?

[Katman]

China makes many high quality products.

I agree. China has the resources and the technology to produce the best product in the world.

But if you want cheap - they can do that too.

Why have we become so focused on cheap?

[bogan]

That's fine if you're buying a hairbrush.

What if you're buying a set of wheel bearings for your bike?

I'd get the size codes, then go to the good bastards at www.bearingandengineering.co.nz They have been able to get the right balance of service/prices to make me want to pay a little more for a local company.

[Howie]

I agree. China has the resources and the technology to produce the best product in the world.

But if you want cheap - they can do that too.

Why have we become so focused on cheap?

Answer to that is easy. Our low wage economy brought about by the labour reforms of the early nineties. It means price rules over quality for most in the NZ.

[ducatilover]

Why have we become so focused on cheap?

This itself is the issue.
With the average NZ wage and the price of the cheap products, who can blame us really? Human nature an' all that.
We want it all, we want it now.
Then again, I have LED indicators, dash lights and tail light on my 600, all from China/HK/Thailand/Taiwan or wherever. They're all excellent products, they were all very cheap.
You'd pay $60-80NZ for my tail light here, I had it landed for under $20.
Is that wrong of me to buy the same product at less than 1/4 of the price?


I know what you mean with poo quality stuff, personally I'm over the junk stuff. Often buying the cheapest and nastiest is a false economy.

[bogan]

I don't think it so much wage related. There's just a hell of a lot of nice things around now, and as consumers we want it all, only the rich will ever be able to afford top dollar product across the lot. Imo, product turnover is too high, how many people get a new phone/computer/car every year? Doesn't really encourage manufacturers to make long lasting products.

[300weatherby]

Shitloads of stuff like rearsets, clip ons, oem copy wheels ect available made in China, stuff currently for sale on trademe right now
Imagine: top of the staight at Ruapuna, top gear and pushing the limiter, then going to the brakes hard, now your made in China clip on breaks off............
Mabe 4th gear flat out going into pothole, a touch on the brakes and down 1, and your made in China oem copy front wheel flys to pieces.....

Wake up people, these are the same people that happily put melamine in baby formula, the chinese are bereft of morality as we understand it, on so many levels, study the history going back over the last 2000 years.

I refuse to shop at the Warehouse because China and India are their number 1 suppliers, and this is killing manufacturing in NZ- local manufacturing means jobs, taxes, a productive local economy. We have too many deadbeat crims and wasters on the dole, while I go to work, simply because there is fuck all manufacturing left to make jobs available.

The same people flood our country with P. look at the misery that causes.

Made in China? Fuck off!!!. Rather go without.

[Oblivion]

Another thing that I find is that for the longest time, price has been associated with the quality of the product. With a counterfeit market, people are gaining access to cheaper goods that fit the same purpose as the more expensive parts. Sometimes they are of the quality, sometimes they are of worse quality.

As its always been, its about getting the biggest bang for your $. If you can get away with a cheap product, you get away with it. If it turns turtle, there's always the quality namebrand that you can turn back to.

[ducatilover]

I'd get the size codes, then go to the good bastards at www.bearingandengineering.co.nz They have been able to get the right balance of service/prices to make me want to pay a little more for a local company.

Agree with this, those guys are f*cking great.

Shitloads of stuff like rearsets, clip ons, oem copy wheels ect available made in China, stuff currently for sale on trademe right now
Imagine: top of the staight at Ruapuna, top gear and pushing the limiter, then going to the brakes hard, now your made in China clip on breaks off............
Mabe 4th gear flat out going into pothole, a touch on the brakes and down 1, and your made in China oem copy front wheel flys to pieces.....

Wake up people, these are the same people that happily put melamine in baby formula, the chinese are bereft of morality as we understand it, on so many levels, study the history going back over the last 2000 years.

I refuse to shop at the Warehouse because China and India are their number 1 suppliers, and this is killing manufacturing in NZ- local manufacturing means jobs, taxes, a productive local economy. We have too many deadbeat crims and wasters on the dole, while I go to work, simply because there is fuck all manufacturing left to make jobs available.

The same people flood our country with P. look at the misery that causes.

Made in China? Fuck off!!!. Rather go without.

You think everything that comes out of China sucks? Should the issue not be, "cheap rip off parts suck". It's not limited to China...

I don't think it so much wage related. There's just a hell of a lot of nice things around now, and as consumers we want it all, only the rich will ever be able to afford top dollar product across the lot. Imo, product turnover is too high, how many people get a new phone/computer/car every year? Doesn't really encourage manufacturers to make long lasting products.

Agree with this too.
I wouldn't buy a new phone that often! Or a PC, fuck Nokia stuff doesn't break, had the same Nokia since '09 and it was a hand me down from a brother, he got it in '07 and it's till working fine (just went silly today and got an N85 as an update, need moar phone bling)

[Oblivion]

I wouldn't buy a new phone that often! Or a PC, fuck Nokia stuff doesn't break, had the same Nokia since '09 and it was a hand me down from a brother, he got it in '07 and it's till working fine (just went silly today and got an N85 as an update, need moar phone bling)

Why stop there? Get a Nokia Lumia 900, and you can say goodbye to ever having to need a hammer again!!

[darkwolf]

I can see the sense in some cases. Though I'm sure over the longer term you could argue it's a self defeating policy, check out my reasoning below:

Say I want a battery drill, but I only use it to put picture hooks in the wall 2 or 3 times a year or fix the pales on my fence this one time. I can buy a cheap knock off drill with no quality control for $50 or I can pick up a $200 RyoDecker. (assuming that by combining two well known reputable brands I create a similarly reputable but fictional brand for the sake of continuing this explanation whilst avoiding unwanted legal attention from themselves or their agents).

In either case I can get the job done in roughly the same time. But based on an average wage less tax it would take only 3 hours work to earn money for the cheap drill vs 12 hours for the RyoDecker. Now I can see that the quality of the knock off is less than the RyoDecker (which is often Chinese made in any event). However, even if it takes an hour to replace a broken cheap drill under warranty, I'd need to get 9 drills in a row that don't work in order for it to be better for me to get the more expensive drill. I'd rather apply the 9 hours of my life that I could hypothetically save to something else like riding to the West Coast, grabbing a nice cup of coffee and coming back home.

However, if I was to replace the rear shock on my 03 ZX6R (because from the factory it's not fantastic) and I was to compare an Öh-Tech (another fictional reputable brand created for the sake of this explanation) rear shock to a cheap Chinese knockoff where I could see or determine that the quality of the Öh-Tech was far superior than the knockoff to the point where the knockoff would jeopardise my ride (fun, comfort or safety) then that would be worth working 4x longer for. However, if I could find an Öh-Tech rear shock without the sticker on it and determined it to be exactly the same as a genuine Öh-Tech, then that would be a different story.

The back story to many of these situations, are that the manufacturers, like Oh-Tech or RyoDecker, have previously signed an agreement for the Chinese company to manufacture these items and subsequently the intellectual property to create these items has been given to the Chinese manufacturer as part of the deal. They then produce these parts (often under licence) to further profit from the deal upon completion of the original contract, or by selling the overruns (product created beyond the requirement of the initial order). Oh-Tech benefits by recovering some of the R&D cost and the manufacter benefits from the sale of the items later produced. What you are buying is effectively an Oh-Tech part at less than Oh-Tech prices, the downside is that it is likely to be a previous model to Oh-Tech's latest offering.

In some cases, it's simply the knockoff manufacturer has acquired the IP to produce the parts - perhaps not the patent - or they have simply copied the design. In these cases, the quality is usually lacking and a decision must be made at the time - is the loss of quality going to affect my purpose sufficiently to prevent me saving my hard earned coin and am I willing to take that risk.

In summary, though it may hurt in the long run as Oh-Tech and RyoDecker don't get my extra coin, they have usually already mitigated their losses and at least in the short-term I have benefited. It seems everyone ends up happy except Mr. Katman

[Scuba_Steve]

Chinese stuff can be hit n miss, some good some not.
Just cause it does or doesn't have a brand name attached don't mean alot either, most brand name companies getting stuff made in china don't actively monitor quality control & alot of non-brand name stuff is actually "diverted" from the same production line as the brand name stuff. It can also be their own & made good quality but it can also be made bad quality like I said hit n miss with china products, all just a lucky dip.

I'll by cheap/chinese for things I don't care to much about, power tools I might use once in a blue moon, tire valve caps, LED lights etc etc I'll research & buy the best of anything I actually care about, my vehicles, computer, TV, camera's, power tools I use etc

[TINA RAY]

That's fine if you're buying a hairbrush.

What if you're buying a set of wheel bearings for your bike?

GET OVER IT KITTY


Remember when JAP was CRAP...................................and WHAT DO you Deal in NOW ????


You have your head up your Anus, if you think a Pussy like YOU is going to change the Tide.............Dreamer