Date: Tue, 24 Sep 2002 14:59:12 -0400
Reply-To: Kenneth Wilford <kenwilfy@COMCAST.NET>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Kenneth Wilford <kenwilfy@COMCAST.NET>
Subject: Re: Are There Junk Ball Joints?
In-Reply-To: <4.3.2.7.2.20020923115749.05116958@pop.rcn.com>
Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Derek,
I think it is pretty darn near impossible to do anything except trust that a
German company is going to have quality controls on what it is selling so
that it is not junk. You cannot trust the "Made in Germany" sticker on the
outside of the box and I would never sell someone a part under false
pretenses or on the condition that it had to be made in der Fatherland
(lying was never one of my strong suits:). You open a Febi box that says
"Made in Germany" on the outside. Inside you find a part that clearly says
"Japan" on it. Is this neccessarily a bad thing? Last time I checked the
Japanese were making some good stuff (please no flames). You have
Piersburg/Hella (a German company) selling fuel pumps that are made in the
US. You have Bosch (a German company) selling parts made in just about any
country that you can imagine (Germany, Spain, Mexico, England, France, etc,
etc) and you can't tell from one shipment of Bosch parts to the next exactly
where these parts are going to be coming from (many times there is no
country of origin markings that I can find).
There are controls in place.
The Manufacturer- You just have to trust that the parts manufacturer has
quality controls in place.
The Parts Retailer- The second thing you have to trust is that the parts
person you are buying your parts from actually cares about repeat business.
If they do then they are going to care that the customer is getting a part
that is not going to fail in a short period of time because then they
probably won't be back again to order more parts. As a parts vendor I have
also found that if there is a problem with a certain part, it doesn't take
long for you to hear about it from complaining customers, then the
hassle/expense of replacing that part causes you to take it off of the shelf
and send it back to the distributor (who is also getting calls that this
part is junk).
The Parts Installer- This is the person who actually installs the part (you
or the mechanic). Many times when you put something on you can tell just by
looking at it if it is a good part or a piece of junk. You take your time
to put it on, you don't want to have to spend time taking it back off and
putting another new one back on in a week.
The nice part about us here at Van-Again is that we have wound up installing
about 90% of the parts that we sell (at this point my '85 Westy has almost
covered this 90% but that is another story) and so we can not only sell them
with confidence that it is a good part but also tell you how to properly
install it so that you don't damage it putting it on. I have to take my
family on a trip in a Vanagon that is repaired with my own parts. If they
weren't good I wouldn't use them, and I wouldn't sell them. Just my two
cents.
Thanks,
Ken Wilford
John 3:16
http://www.vanagain.com
Phone: (856)-327-4936
Fax: (856)-327-2242
-----Original Message-----
From: Vanagon Mailing List [mailto:vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com]On Behalf
Of Derek Drew
Sent: Monday, September 23, 2002 12:08 PM
To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
Subject: Are There Junk Ball Joints?
I went to research syncro ball joints and noticed massive price differences.
The cheapest I could find front joints from VW was about $90 each. But I
noticed that our vendor friends had them for about $25. Unfortunately,
there was scant information on who the supplier was of these joints and how
they compare to OEM joints. Importedcarparts.com said its joints were from
Lemforder, but this name is not familiar to me and I am not sure that is a
good thing. Importedcarparts.com also mentions that its lower syncro joints
are made by Febi. Is that good?
PRICES ON UPPERS
Importedcarparts.com Lemforder $32
BusDepot.com $24.95
Bus-Boys.com Ball Joint, Upper $23.65
PRICES ON LOWERS
For the syncro lower ball joints, I noticed that while I saw VW joints at
$80, the aftermarket friends had them listed for $12 to $25.
Importedcarparts Febi $23
Bus Depot
$24.95 251 407 187
$19.95 251 407 187 OR
Bus Boys B. 251-407-187 Ball Joint, Lower $12.90
QUESTION
So my question is whether one is safe to order any of these joints willy
nilly and buy by price, or whether there are different manufacturers of the
joints and if so, who is the OEM manufacturer of them.
Ron, if you are reading this, could you comment on the manufacturer of your
joints and what it means OR by the cheaper of your two joints. I tried to
find the key to your part numbers to see what OR meant but was not
successful.
If anyone can make any comments about various ball joint manufacturers or
whether to pay up or buy by price it would be appreciated.
_______________________________________________
Derek Drew
CEO & Co-Founder
http://www.ConsumerSearch.com/
New York, NY & Washington DC
============================
Best Consumer Advice Site
PC World Magazine, Aug. 2001,
============================
ConsumerSearch is Best
Newsweek, Nov. 5, 2001
============================
derekdrew@rcn.com
212-580-6486
Alternate numbers for the industrious phone caller that wants to try every
avenue: 212-580-6486 (best), 703-408-1532 (cell); 202-966-7907 (Work),
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