Parts for Sale: 4x reproduction Nissan Fairlady Z432 wheels in aluminum

[Sean Dezart]

8 minutes ago, Lurch said:

the cost of is exercise is exorbitant, as we are doing it buy the book - FEA, Stress Calcs, destructive testing, engineering type approval...
And no Mr Desert, they are not commercially viable - we may not even make them available to anyone other than Gav and myself.

I admire your courage, diligence and wealth - so why go to all those lengths and keep them for your selves ?

NB, my surname is Dézart - thanks.

[Jason240z]

18 minutes ago, Lurch said:

Unless an individual wants to pay - in advance - for a set in Magnesium, it is highly unlikely.
Working with Mg creates a whole new group of issues...
As Mr T alluded to in an earlier post, the cost of is exercise is exorbitant, as we are doing it buy the book - FEA, Stress Calcs, destructive testing, engineering type approval...
And no Mr Desert, they are not commercially viable - we may not even make them available to anyone other than Gav and myself. Time will tell. 

I digress... I have nothing to add to this merry-go-round other than:
If you want a set of Mr Deserts wheels, then buy a set.
Or don't.
Simples.

The design was ‘designed’ to be in magnesium, so it might not be as bad as you think.  I would be genuinely interested.
 

what I might do is wait till you’ve made some, then wait to get some of mr desert at half price from your castings and development 😂

Edited October 1, 2020 by Jason240z

[HS30-H]

2 hours ago, Sean Dezart said:

Kidney anyone ? 😁

Change of menu? Up to now you've been serving plenty of baloney.

[Zed Head]

Off-topic, or maybe actually back on topic, did you buy a certain number of rims, or do you place individual orders with the factory?  It would be interesting to see a picture of a set of wheels side by side, just to see the final finish quality.  Grinding marks, smoothness, etc.  

On the ground off "Made in XXX" area, it looks like the China part was actually ground off of the core mold, not the wheel after it was made.  I assume that these are investment castings, using wax or polystyrene cores?  Why did they do that?  Seems like they would have ground off more ID marks.  Maybe they're not actually made in China?  Not that it really matters, just curious.  We used to work with Korean companies that oversaw production facilities in China.  Manufacturing over there is all inter-connected.

Aside from the business practices, and concerns about "ethics" it's still interesting to see somebody working directly with a Chinese factory.  Many small business spend a lot of time trying to figure out how to get their products made over there.  You can't just call them up and/or go visit.

 

By the way, I took a course in ethics when i was in school and it's an area that can be confusing, and often is.  Ethics are not honesty or morality (I'm not implying a lack of either for Mr. Dezart).  Ethics are actually determined by organizations or groups of people.  There is no universal ethic to be applied to a situation (actually if you Google it people have decided that they know what the "universal code" is.  But, if a person doesn't agree to it, it doesn't count.  The agreeing is the key part)..

Here's an example.  Just to add to the discussion.

https://www.nspe.org/resources/ethics/code-ethics

[HS30-H]

4 hours ago, Sean Dezart said:

Why does it matter ? Long story on and off between Alan, Jason and myself but it does matter to you ''Cha Bu Duo'' ! I'm not complaining about M-Speeds' or their retailers' prices here and the market HAS told them they're too expensive.  There are no orders coming into the factory !

Says the factory to you, right? The factory which apparently has absolutely impeccable ethics...

4 hours ago, Sean Dezart said:

I can't see why any of you are complaining - none are posing as M-Speed, they're all coming from the same factory and all of the same factory-inspected quality.

...a factory you can definitely trust, right? 

So, to clarify, you're standing behind the quality if these wheels with what? Their word?

4 hours ago, Sean Dezart said:

You, like the other pair are deliberately casting doubt on these wheels in an attempt to simply scare off buyers. The only way that you want to see wheels like this on the market is expensively so as to deter Joe Dough from buying and therefore their prolification upon Zs......in effect, you want to keep them exclusive !

There's that baloney again. I suppose you think that if you keep repeating it, some of it might stick. Deluded.

4 hours ago, Sean Dezart said:

You, yourself were keen about the M-Speed emulations a year ago - very excited and NOW you have concerns.....none of you want the ordinary guy to have anything that approaches the Holy-Grail styles of period wheels.

Nurse!

4 hours ago, Sean Dezart said:

* and 'enough' is the key word here, M'Speed aren't  and the wheels presumably ordered by them but unpaid are being sold by the factory...I'm not stealing, I'm buying them at the market rate, slightly above that (I believe) of M-Speeds' price. These are the same quality as those seen sonce (2xyears ?) ago and any assumptions to the contrary are not only irresponsable, placing doubt on the M-Speed supplied wheels themselves but complete nonsense designed solely to discourage buyers !

No, what you have done - to all intents and purposes - is collaborate with the Chinese factory in what at the very least is sharp practice and, at worst, sheer grifting.

You will be in no position whatsoever to comment on the situation between the Chinese factory and M-Speed Japan unless you have spoken to both sides and come to some kind of agreement with all sides. I don't know how I can make it any more plain to you and I honestly wonder why the people close to you are not advising you to wind your neck in and to go about this the right way. I think a lawyer would give you some wise words at this point.

4 hours ago, Sean Dezart said:

I'll put up one of these wheels against one bought from the uS M-Speed retailer and someone independant have them both tested in complete confidence that they are exactly the same

Setting aside the fact that JDM Car Parts have no obligation to you, to M-Speed Japan or anybody else to indulge you in your 'test' idea: What exactly will you be providing? How does one of the wheels that you have got in your hands represent what will be coming out of the Chinese factory in future? That's THE WHOLE POINT about the quality. You didn't specify anything in this project. You have not created anything. There would be nothing for you to peddle if it had not been for M-Speed Japan's investment, IP, R&D, QC and everything else that goes with a project like that. M-Speed Japan had a contractual agreement with the Chinese factory so there would naturally be some control of material, quality and consistency over the last two+ years of operations, but you've stepped in out of the blue and you somehow seem to expect that you can inherit all of that? Why?

4 hours ago, Sean Dezart said:

But that is just exactly what you guys want - no more Chinese cheap parts and please, don't mention the community when none of you want 'the community' to benefit.....unless you're rich !

Nobody needs to be "rich" to buy these wheels from M-Speed in Japan. M-Speed Japan's prices are perfectly reasonable considering the costs that will have been incurred in setting up the project, the overheads that a Japanese company incur in day-to-day operations and the profit margins that they levy on their products. That's business, and it is their business. Their main expected market was, and still is, Japan and their prices are perfectly reasonable for that market. You don't have any god-given right to step into that picture and accuse them of both "profiteering" and insufficient sell-through. It's none of your business.

I'll say it again. You should have approached M-Speed Japan and talked to them about this situation before you started dealing with the Chinese factory. The possibility of a distribution deal, an agency or commission based sales would have been good topics for discussion.

Did that not even occur to you? Really, what has happened to you, Sean?

             

[Patcon]

Even after all this, I have my original question. Did Mspeed have an agreement with the factory that prevented them from selling this wheel through other vendors...

[240260280]

29 minutes ago, Patcon said:

Even after all this, I have my original question. Did Mspeed have an agreement with the factory that prevented them from selling this wheel through other vendors...

Businesses in Mainland China do not operate like western companies. Qualifications, contracts, and certifications mean nothing. They are usually faked.  In fact lying is OK. Most in the west make the mistake that doing business in Mainland China is like doing business in North America, Europe, Australia, Japan, etc.  It is very different.  It is very common for factories to produce extra to sell under the table... if a product is very desired, they will often even build another factory to compete.... there is no IP protection in China and no legal system to fight with.

 

Here is some of the $^!# going on.  Multiply it by a million to get a sense of what is going on world wide.  China Govt extorts foreigners with Chinese ancestors or with relatives in China to spy, steal etc.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-02-04/huawei-sting-offers-rare-glimpse-of-u-s-targeting-chinese-giant

 

https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-chinese-officials-hijacked-my-company-11596233617

 

 

[Patcon]

6 minutes ago, 240260280 said:

Businesses in Mainland China do not operate like western companies. Qualifications, contracts, and certifications mean nothing. They are usually faked.  In fact lying is OK. Most in the west make the mistake that doing business in Mainland China is like doing business in North America, Europe, Australia, Japan, etc.  It is very different.  It is very common for factories to produce extra to sell under the table... if a product is very desired, they will often even build another factory to compete.... there is no IP protection in China and no legal system to fight with.

 

Here is some of the $^!# going on.  Multiply it by a million to get a sense of what is going on world wide.  China Govt extorts foreigners with Chinese ancestors or with relatives in China to spy, steal etc.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-02-04/huawei-sting-offers-rare-glimpse-of-u-s-targeting-chinese-giant

 

https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-chinese-officials-hijacked-my-company-11596233617

 

 

I realize it might not be enforceable or worth the paper it's written on, but does it exists?

I also have no love loss for how business gets done in China. I understand this pretty well.

If they made an agreement with the factory to make wheels in an environment where everyone lies, cheats and steals, they should fully expect product to go out the back door. If you're gonna put capital at risk to develop a wheel or product, then you need to have safeguards in place for that money. It takes two to tango...

If they have an agreement, then I have more sympathy even if China's laws don't support them.

[Gav240z]

20 minutes ago, 240260280 said:

Businesses in Mainland China do not operate like western companies. Qualifications, contracts, and certifications mean nothing. They are usually faked.  In fact lying is OK. Most in the west make the mistake that doing business in Mainland China is like doing business in North America, Europe, Australia, Japan, etc.  It is very different.  It is very common for factories to produce extra to sell under the table... if a product is very desired, they will often even build another factory to compete.... there is no IP protection in China and no legal system to fight with.

Yeah  "Cha Bu Duo" basically. 😄

I once bought a Guitar second hand off a so-called collector... It appeared genuine in every sense of the word.

I still have the photos of it.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/6ZSeZFcdnZPfjh7M7

Notice how it has a serial number, Epiphone Branding, and it even came with a little Epiphone Brochure. For all intents and purposes it looks the same, certainly in photos it still looks impressive. I was naive and it was my first electric guitar (still a learner at the time and still am really), but not knowing much about setting up the action or how good pickups should sound I tested it and it seemed ok (the amp was small and not great) so it was hard to really know if it was "kosher" or not.

Anyway after a while I was a bit frustrated with it and took it to my guitar teacher who said the 'action' on it (usually defined by how the strings sit against the fretboard was all off) and it wasn't nice to play. He suggested I take it to get set up right. I take it to a specialist to have to re-configured. He calls me and say "where did you get this guitar from?" I said I bought it off a guy on the Internet second hand - he said he was a collector. He goes on to explain the guitar is not very good and there isn't much that can be done to fix it. He also said it looks like it's made of chipboard type wood.. as oppose to Rosewood. Also the pickups and pots were of interior quality.

Sure enough if you look at the photos you can see the Chipboard under the pickups.

So I sent photos to Epiphone / Gibson and they confirmed it was indeed a fake.

Turns out a lot of places in China that make the official good version for some big American brands of guitar, also as mentioned sometimes have another factory in parallel churn out the "fakes" at a much lower standard but pass them off as legit. It's a huge mess for these companies who then have to try and stop the behavior.

Of course the fella I bought the guitar off had no knowledge of the guitar being a fake and pretty much washed his hands of it. True or not, I was down 400 euros and ended up giving the guitar away..

Just my experience with such situations.

[Sean Dezart]

4 hours ago, Gav240z said:

Yeah  "Cha Bu Duo" basically. 😄

"......considered against the Australian adage of, “good enough for the bush” and the nations pride in bush ingenuity."

It's everywhere these days Gavin with 'just-in-time' production and accountants leading companies and screwing costs down to the last cent to be 'just that little bit' more competitive than the next !

7 hours ago, HS30-H said:

Setting aside the fact that JDM Car Parts have no obligation to you, to M-Speed Japan or anybody else to indulge you in your 'test' idea: What exactly will you be providing? How does one of the wheels that you have got in your hands represent what will be coming out of the Chinese factory in future? That's THE WHOLE POINT about the quality.

How does anyone know how well a factory will fabricate anything down the line - if anyone, chez M-Speed for example, checks anything it'll be a quick visuel inspection  - what else do you expect ? I might know at least as much as you on the subject of quality-control.

7 hours ago, HS30-H said:

You don't have any god-given right to step into that picture and accuse them of both "profiteering" and insufficient sell-through. It's none of your business.

Frankly - this is none of YOUR business either.

 

You're only feeling sorry for a Japanese company trying (and failing) to hide the foreign manufacture of their parts and doing your upmost, all of you, to dissuade anyone from buying them with wild imagination and pure speculation on their actuel and future quality.....and on the way just having a good dig at me personally. And that's it - your gameplay to prohibit the sale of these wheels to the ordinary guy, proud of his Z who's seen these wheels in photos and is now offered the opportunity to own them.....but that, in your minds, 'devalues their curbside appeal' so rather no-one have them.

Please don't label ME selfish !

[HS30-H]

6 hours ago, Patcon said:

Even after all this, I have my original question. Did Mspeed have an agreement with the factory that prevented them from selling this wheel through other vendors...

I enquired about this some months back. M-Speed Japan's representative told me that they had made a legal contract with the Chinese casting foundry when they had engaged them to manufacture their wheels for them, and that the Chinese factory had breached this contract by selling these wheels to third parties.

M-Speed Japan were quite clear that they do not authorise these parallel - effectively 'back door' - sales, and that the Chinese factory are in breach of contract.  

[ZCarFever]

Just trying to understand what is going on here... Already 70 posts on that topic?! Accusations, he says she says, I got a bigger pecker than yours, my father is stronger than yours, 3rd grade schoolyard BS. If anyone wants to be an activist, pick a real fight, plenty to choose from In the real world nowadays... 

The most important question is; What could be the end result of that back and forth endless non sens...? NOTHING but a big waste of time, that’s what is going to come out of it! No moderator on this forum?

If you want the damn wheels buy them, if you don't want them for whatever reasons or beliefs then just dont! That is the most important influence anyone could have on it!

My 2 cents...

Gentlemen please move on!