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SPArKy_Dave

WARNING Please Read! CHEAP PARTS = DANGER

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Originally posted by user DEANKDX

Copied over from another forum, due to importance.

 

 

I bought this set http://cgi.ebay.com....rack=true��last August 2011 figuring the main issue would be wear sooner than TRW branded stuff. i did not expect a FAILURE in a part i assumed was one solid cast.
seems they are manufactured in 2 parts... and the thin section of the broken part is approx 1mm which surprises me it lasted the 10,000km it did.

this failed on a slow intersection turn without warning(approx 15kmh). you could only imagine what could happen if it failed at highway speeds.

i'll be changing at minimum the other side one as precaution to a TRW brand which are closer to $50 each(still cheaper than a tow truck let alone a life or injury)

THIS DISGUSTS ME TOTALLY, And although i know you get what you pay for.... you shouldn't be able to buy at any cost something so inferior (worn originals would be safer)

if you have any suggestions for AUTHORITIES to contact regarding this i'd like to get the word out to prevent this crap from ending up on our roads.
i plan to contact vic roads and RACV to pass this on to whoever will listen.



N5Q7RGy.jpg

BrokeninnertierodDANGER2.jpg

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Follow up posts by DeanKDX - 

 

I have sent off photo examples of Marks bent one and my snapped one to the seller and consumer affairs.

just wanted to warn others to choose wisely.

 

 

Thanks Cav, i contacted ACCC first, they passed me onto the consumer affairs.. reminded me of incedent reports and risk assessments at work.. even though i count it as a SEVERE NEAR MISS, it will probably go no where due to no damage or injury..
as long as i can make some people aware and it gets around i'm happy .

i am honest enough to admit i am a tight ass, but if i knew they were NOT Structurally sound of course i wouldnt have bought them.. i did expect them to wear out much sooner.

 

 

of the mobs i contacted, they all passed the buck onto someone else.. i consider it buyer beware..
eg, dont buy explosives for kids to play with.. and dont buy cheap suspension parts..

if you cant afford to buy quality parts.. you cant afford to drive a car..(i should have learned this from when i once bought retread tyres and had a failure)

 

 

 

everyone passed the buck, no one got back to me with a resolution
i got them a year ago,
the outer one i couldn't break with my hammer

i took the other inner one off, rested it on the other arm,. one hit with the hammer and it broke.

I SUGGEST if you have them in your car.. change the inners, or at least hit them with a hammer see if they break.. if they break that's a good thing. reason to change them.

innertierodsareUNSAFE.jpg

 

 

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I'm still trying to work out why its hollow..??? :blink:

 

Yeah. I don't get it. How is it hollow in the middle but the end of the thread solid?

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

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I'm still trying to work out why its hollow..??? :blink:

 

I'd say it's made in two separate sections that are somehow welded and smoothed over to look like one piece. Like a bit of booker bar welded to the forged section instead of cutting a thread into the steel forging and needing special tooling to do so. Done on the cheap in other words.

 

The shit thing is that if you or I welded a suspension component (illegal) we'd be liable if it failed. This bloke did the right thing and got shafted anyway.

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and dont forget they have still been selling them. as i totally forgot about the thread. and bought off the same mob. had the threads shear on 1 while i was parking it luckily enough. and i cut them in half for dean and they where slightly thicker. but still hollow in a point where the thread starts

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Dragging this back up... so im looking at this kit at the moment - http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/290236172270?ssPageName=STRK:MESINDXX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1436.l2649

It doesn't list what brand they are but the boxes in the pick are Wasp units and it doesn't state that the item pictured is not what i would be receiving. So whats the collective opinion?

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I've dealt withthat seller before. Nrap. Pretty good to deal with & in fact I received WASP parts from them. 100% positive feedback over 29000 trades, lists his phone number and email.

Gives a 3yr 60000k warranty.......can't go wrong really mate.

 

I think it's the parts that 'suzukisuper' sells that are shocking.

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That's a great deal mate, I bought all upper and lower ball joints from that seller 2 and a half years ago and the boots have just started to split but I drive on a rough dirt road everyday to work so I can't really complain about the quality of wasp parts

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I've dealt withthat seller before. Nrap. Pretty good to deal with & in fact I received WASP parts from them. 100% positive feedback over 29000 trades, lists his phone number and email.

Gives a 3yr 60000k warranty.......can't go wrong really mate.

 

I think it's the parts that 'suzukisuper' sells that are shocking.

pretty sure the crap i got off suzukisuper were 60,000km etc warranty too, he would have happily given me replacements for the broken one(same quality)

the 100% feedback doesn't mean much either as i would have given A+ feedback seeing they fit and arrived on time, you cant leave feedback after a certain amount of time. (i just had an electric antenna mast fail after only 2 weeks in the car, i hadn't got to fitting it soon enough to leave feedback... not a dangerous part though,)

 

HOWEVER: are the TRW balljoints as good as you can get? are the parts fitted to historic race cars safe at 200kmh? and what brand are they?

its hard justifying spending more than the car is worth on parts, but with how quick most of the cheap parts wear out you are better off with the good stuff especially if you run expensive tyres,(i had a balll joint wear out in 6 months/20,000km that had a 40,000km warranty and it wrecked 2 perfect tyres worth far more than the part  )

 

i would fit TRW upper and lower ball joints, inner and outter tie rods and pitman arm and idler arm unless there is some better quality.  might cost $400 odd, but should last at least twice as long.

i wonder how good the ball joints are that are fitted to hotchkiss or global west types control arms? they are a different type of joint though(pressed in)

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pretty sure the crap i got off suzukisuper were 60,000km etc warranty too, he would have happily given me replacements for the broken one(same quality)

the 100% feedback doesn't mean much either as i would have given A+ feedback seeing they fit and arrived on time, you cant leave feedback after a certain amount of time. (i just had an electric antenna mast fail after only 2 weeks in the car, i hadn't got to fitting it soon enough to leave feedback... not a dangerous part though,)

 

HOWEVER: are the TRW balljoints as good as you can get? are the parts fitted to historic race cars safe at 200kmh? and what brand are they?

its hard justifying spending more than the car is worth on parts, but with how quick most of the cheap parts wear out you are better off with the good stuff especially if you run expensive tyres,(i had a balll joint wear out in 6 months/20,000km that had a 40,000km warranty and it wrecked 2 perfect tyres worth far more than the part  )i would fit TRW upper and lower ball joints, inner an9d outter tie rods and pitman arm and idler arm unless there is some better quality.  might cost $400 odd, but should last at least twice as long.

 

i wonder how good the ball joints are that are fitted to hotchkiss or global west types control arms? they are a different type of joint though(pressed in)

Fair point.

Eventually the ones who deal in crap, dangerous, inferior products are found out but usually it's too late for some of their customers which is shit & feedback is supposed to be an indicator of carachter but you're right, it isn't a magic bullet.

 

Sometimes it's our own fault that we try to save a few bucks but put ourselves & Families at risk by buying/using the cheapest whatever it is.

No-one can excuse someone for knowingly selling dangerous parts though eh and those sellers need to be seriously held accountable & dealt with.

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Nrap is 'around the corner' from me. Operates from a small warehouse on his property. I bought from him before and he seems pretty genuine. He used to operate North Ringwood Auto Parts on Oban Road in Rinwood when "nrap" was a storefront. Had been there since I started driving but move on around a decade ago. Must've figured, overheads, being as they are - it was more cost effective to operate from his property. So...he's been in the game for a while.

 

Seeing the opening post motivates me to x-ray my next set of suspension components just to see what's in them...or not! I work in an x-ray department and have x-rayed and scanned all manner of shit that isn't people! Webber carburettors don't CT scan well! The cast aluminium bodies are okay but brass and steel components flog out the scan...as does metal stuff in people. They'd x-ray alright though. I scanned one to to see if I could split it into 0.5mm slices - was interested in what goes on inside....fun really!

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I would like to actually test the quality of the casting metal, used in the manufacture

of all the different (currently available) x-series ball joints and tierod ends.

 

I guess we'd have to establish a baseline, by analysing the metal quality,

of an 'Original genuine Ford' set of TRW steering components - from the 80's.

 

I haven't a clue, how you'd go about getting such testing done though.

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Testing a component to characterize it is easy...but potentially expensive. You could test for the chemical composition of the component and make inferences regarding the quality of the metal used in manufacture. The presence of certain chemical elements confers certain characteristics on any alloy - steel included. Steel's been around for thousands of years and it's pretty well known what happens when you add removed components from it. Steel, by definition contains carbon.....but too much embrittles it. The presence of sulphur and phosphorus indicates a poor refining proces and can reduce its strength. This analysis would not be destructive of the component and requires a small physical sample to be taken. You can only infer certain 'qualitative' things from this line of inquiry. Rigorous testing would require other methods.

 

The microstructure of the metal is important too. The size of the metal 'grains' and the distribution of carbon within the steel (as well as other stuff) has an impact on the physical characteristic of a metal such as its strength and resistance to chamical attack (corrosion). Scanning electron microscopes can be used to do this....they're typically found at universities....there's one at Monash in Melbourne.

 

Fatigue...especially important to suspension components can be tested by setting up a custom rig that exposes a component to cyclic loading and unloading. By its nature fatigue testing is destructive of the component.

 

X-ray is a good, cheap, widely available method of examining for manufacting/physical defects such as gas voids. It doesn't involve the destruction of the component either.

 

Testing is prone to statitistical issues. Test one component and you run the risk of testing either the good one of a batch...or the bad one - resulting in incorrect assertions about the item. Manufacturing complex items...no matter how good the process is prone to some variation. Good manufacturers aim to reduce this variation...but you can never fully remove it. Proper testing requires numerous samples, can be quite involved and expensive. It's part of the reason why R & D costs  a bomb.

 

I have some experience in this - one of my previous jobs was in an analytical laboratory (sounds brainy but it's not really!) and the missus worked in a joint that used to characterize materials that had all the smart guys and expensive testing toys.

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I vote, pixorban...... ;)

 

Was thinking about this. We've got a new scanner that uses some smart algorithms that reduce metal artefact. The machines I use scan people, they're designed to scan things that are kinda mushy and contain around 75% water. Some people have metal in them...artifical hips, bullets, metal poles etc and this metal really screws with the scan because it absorbs heaps of xrays. This new scanner does a really good job of correcting for heavy metals so it may be time to re-visit the "Webber carby scan" (I've lurv to do a cylinder head too!)  I'll give it a shot again next time I'm rostered on the weekend. If the pictures work and I can figure a meaningful way of displaying them...I'll post.

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Back to the ebay packages... this is the reply i got back from the seller i listed above for anyone interested.

 

 

Clint. All except the idler arm are Wasp units.

Idler is a Roadsafe one as Wasp do not do them in the standard form.

Ours are all good units. Nothing cheap and chinese about these.

I have sold them for over 30 years ..

Cheers

 

Rob Mills

Ringwood Auto Parts

PO Box 230

Hurstbridge

Victoria 3099

Australia

 

Phone 03 9714 8196

0408 104894

Fax 03 8692 6942

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