Date:         Mon, 31 Mar 2008 16:29:27 -0400
Reply-To:     The Bus Depot <vanagon@BUSDEPOT.COM>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         The Bus Depot <vanagon@BUSDEPOT.COM>
Subject:      Re: brake parts quality question
Comments: cc: Mark Drillock <mdrillock@COX.NET>
In-Reply-To:  <47EEF1AC.7080909@cox.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

> A relative of mine several months ago installed a new brake
> master cylinder in his  Vanagon. It was a Bietrix brand,
> whatever that is. ...
> Has anyone here used that brand of master cylinder? How did


To the best of my knowledge, the Bietrix brand has not actually been used
for several years. Unless it's been resurrected, I'd guess that somebody has
old stock.  The brand name was used by a long-defunct importer/wholesaler
called Brake Headquarters for a line of primarily Indian made brake parts.
While I did not carry their Vanagon master cylinder, my general recollection
of the brand is that that it was typical of other Indian made brake
hydraulics, which is to say inexpensive but not quite up to OEM standards.
Not horribly unreliable, but with a somewhat higher out-of-the-box defect
rate, as might be expected for its price range.  My beef with Bietrix is
that their packaging was (IMO) intentionally misleading.  Bietrix's boxes
looked a whole lot like ATE's boxes from a distance (ATE being an OEM
supplier to VW) , and the Bietrix logo was stylized in such a way that if
you didn't look very closely you could easily misread it as Bendix (another
well known brand).

- Ron Salmon
  The Bus Depot, Inc.
  www.busdepot.com
  (215)  234-VWVW

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