Chinese Junk rant

[240260280z]

Spent a full day chasing my tail helping a friend with his newly imported California series 1. Just when it is tuned and on its way home the "micro" fuel pump fails but still buzzes. Made in China crap. Previously it was working fine. Ended up limping back to my place and scavenging from a few beater mechanical clackers, threw on a G2 filter, and it went on it's way.

I did improve my method for tuning fuel and balancing carbs so it was not so bad.

Edited October 19, 2014 by Blue

[FastWoman]

OK, not Z related, but Chinese crap related: Night before last, our security alarm kept going off in the middle of the night, until I finally had the sense not to re-arm it. The offending zone was a contact sensor on the garage door. The next day I went to diagnose it. It turns out that the reed switch had a resistance of 29 ohms when closed, and the circuitry to which it was wired couldn't decide whether that was open or closed.

A reed switch...

A Chinese reed switch...

I mean, how do you screw up making a reed switch? It's one of the simplest and most robust designs of switch there is.

Sadly, all reed switches seem to be made in China, so far as I'm aware. I replaced the offending Chinese reed switch with another Chinese reed switch whose contact resistance is of a fraction of an ohm. We can now set the alarm again without the system going off spontaneously at 4:00 AM. It was a $2 part that wasted one night's sleep and an hour of two of my time.

I wish we could start making stuff here in the US and Canada again. I'd buy it.

[240260280z]

Yup that is the problem.

Watered down metal that oxidizes... it looks like reed switch and feels like a reed switch but it is not.... fake crap.

I bought a SS knife set for my apt when I worked in NJ. it rusts in the dishwasher.... fake Chinese stainless steel.

The business model is that the western world and huge Chinese and Indian markets will continually pay low prices for fake junk that may work for a short time but that we are too cheap and lazy to do anything when it fails but to buy another. It is a vicious addictive cycle where huge numbers of small financial transactions continually flow to China. We must all break this cycle or the junk will continue to proliferate just like the phone scammers will keep in business and tells us our internet is broken due to their success from enough fools amongst us to keep them in business.

[Carl Beck]

Cheap Junk - comes from the "businesses" that buy it from the factory - and resell it in the retail market.

High Quality - comes from the businesses that buy it from the factory - and resell it in the retail market.

The truth is that an ever growing number of Americans make their purchase decisions, based not on the quality of the products - but upon the quality of the advertising generating sales. They make their purchasing decisions based on ease of purchase and price.

Going to Home Depot is "ease of purchase". You can get everything you need in one location. In decades past you might have to go to the Hardware Store, the Lumber Yard, the Electrical Supply Company, the Plumbing Supply Company etc etc - - just to get one small home improvement project done.

Going to Home Depot instead of Lowes - might be a decision between "ease of purchase" or "lower price". So Home Depot and Lowes are always looking for lower priced items, and they are always building stores in the same towns/locations.

Bottom Line - it isn't Chinese Junk. As long as price remains the main element in purchasing.

China is building their own Space Station. In my opinion the highest quality personal computers, smart phones and portable music players - Apples products are almost all made in china. Yes, up front they seem to cost a bit more - but everything I've bought from them has been very reliable and all the hardware has easily out lived the technical life of its software. Because Apple buys high quality Chinese manufactured products - and resells them in the retail market.

Harbor Freight - plays both sides of the game. Much of what they sell is junk, some of what they sell is actually very high quality. For years now Harbor Freight's "US General" tool boxes have offered quality as good or better than other major manufacturers offerings - at half the price. This while old line, well known products were being made cheaper and cheaper - Sears Craftsman brand has all but destroyed itself by buying Chinese Cheap Junk - instead of buying much higher quality Chinese Products.

Just like Japan before it - sooner or later - more and more businesses will start to buy high quality products from Chinese Manufacturing Plants - and resell them in the retail market in America.

So if your fuel pump or security system are cheap junk - call it like it is - list the name of the company that is selling it.

FWIW,

Carl B.

[madkaw]

I have to agree with Carl, it's American greed that dictates how stuff is made. If the vendor says' make it as cheaply as possible' , that's what the Chinese manufacture will do. It's the guy ordering the product that should be setting an assuring the quality of the product.

[FastWoman]

Carl, you raise some good points. And it's certainly worth remembering that Japan was once a purveyor of mostly cheap crap.

You say that we should speak in terms of the company and not the country, but that's nearly impossible in the case of China. There are zillions of mom-and-pop businesses in that economy, many of whom make parts for brands we might recognize. For instance, I might not hesitate too much to buy a piece of Yongnuo lighting equipment (for photography), but I realize it has scores of components from unknown Chinese sources that could easily fail the same way my reed switch did. Part of the problem is parts that deceive and specs that lie -- for instance canning a 35V-rated electrolytic capacitor in a 50V-labeled can (literally a complete, canned and labeled 35V cap placed into a larger, mislabeled can and sold for more money). I hope Chinese manufacture matures like Japanese manufacture did, but then there will always be another China to feed us cheap crap.

[240260280z]

China can make smart phones because of american design, german & american processes, western oversight, and german factory automation. Left to their own abilities, corruption, lack of laws, over population, congestion and different values (as a result of communism and gansterism) the products are not the Apple kind but more of a pesticide poisonous apple stuffed with paper and worms made by underpaid workers.

I do agree that western corporate sell outs and our weak spineless leaders (if you call them that) are also a significant factor.

[hr369]

Hey the germans are getting in on the cheap is better for profits too. I was shocked when i bought a new beetle. Rivets holding

the ring gear on, rivets holding the 2 piece flywheel together, plastic interior parts that crack when breathed on, headliners that

the fabric seperates from the cardboard liner..... and on and on. NOT what i was expecting from previously owning vw's built in the 60's

and 70's.

I use the made in china label as a great tool to keep my wife from buying crap that we don't need or will never use. yes she's a shopaholic but that stops her in her tracks EVERY time.

Alot of those dollars sent to china are coming back as business investment dollars when the chinese business owner decides he has big enough nest egg and fears the govt will take it all

away eventually in the next purge, he heads to the usa or canada to start a business there.

Canada did essentially the same thing in 97 when hong kong was handed back to china. Many of

the smart business owners fled WITH their money and started businesses in canada.

With whats happening in hong kong now, they are probably really glad they fled.

Edited October 20, 2014 by hr369

[HS30-H]

China can make smart phones because of american design, german & american processes, western oversight, and german factory automation. Left to their own abilities, corruption, lack of laws, over population, congestion and different values (as a result of communism and gansterism) the products are not the Apple kind but more of a pesticide poisonous apple stuffed with paper and worms made by underpaid workers.

"Left to their own abilities..." ? You're one small step away from looking like a xenophobic idiot with comments like that.

The last person I heard coming up with this "..all the Chinese do is copy" and "...we taught them everything they know" stuff was drinking tea from a porcelain cup that was decorated with faux Chinese scenes (it was made by Wedgwood). He was oblivious to the irony.

I presume you are too?

[240260280z]

I worked for a Chinese company for 4.5 years.... I saw the anchor babies and the statistical improbability that all first born were male ~ 20 in a row... all born in the USA too. I know business owners whose businesses were taken from them by the Govt. and others who must pay gangsters to leave them alone. The mainland Chinese culture is very different and the formation of people who live within it is different. I resent being called xenophobic as I have good friends all over the world including China. Sadly many had their parents taken from them when they were young by the Govt. The country is one messed up place that worships money and relationships for advancing in the quagmire for the most part... humans, air, water, quality, honesty, law, faking do not matter much. Sadly for us, this environment produces a lot of junk and fake crap that fools us fools.

[siteunseen]

They put pee pee in our Coke and thought it was funny.

[bpilati]

"Left to their own abilities..." ? You're one small step away from looking like a xenophobic idiot with comments like that.

The last person I heard coming up with this "..all the Chinese do is copy" and "...we taught them everything they know" stuff was drinking tea from a porcelain cup that was decorated with faux Chinese scenes (it was made by Wedgwood). He was oblivious to the irony.

I presume you are too?

I worked for a Chinese company for 4.5 years.... I saw the anchor babies and the statistical improbability that all first born were male ~ 20 in a row... all born in the USA too. I know business owners whose businesses were taken from them by the Govt. and others who must pay gangsters to leave them alone. The mainland Chinese culture is very different and the formation of people who live within it is different. I resent being called xenophobic as I have good friends all over the world including China. Sadly many had their parents taken from them when they were young by the Govt. The country is one messed up place that worships money and relationships for advancing in the quagmire for the most part... humans, air, water, quality, honesty, law, faking do not matter much. Sadly for us, this environment produces a lot of junk and fake crap that fools us fools.

I hate to see two of our long-standing members quarreling like this. Let's try to set the example and word our posts a bit differently. Thanks.