I guess it had to had happen. Going looking for all the old German bearings for next engine build. These are new camshaft bearings. Do not know if they are steel backed or not. The Mahle bearings from Brazil are copper backed. Silverline is the only current manufacturer that are steel backed.

Mark, that is VERY CONCERNING!

The bean counters at Kolbenschmidt must be having a ball.

At least Silverline is readily available, even Rockauto carries them if you search by part number.

Just got a batch of Bosch spark plugs...made in china.

And who is surprised? Nothing but junk from that country.

Local Air Cooled Porsche shop prefers the Japanese bearings, not sure of brand name. They had mentioned they were precisely made and of great quality.

Fully agree. Not only Porsche sells cheap chinese junk where the cardbord boxes are often worth more than the content. Same with Mercedes, for example.

Germany is going down...but-uh-I shouldn´t get political here...

Arno

Not all Chinese make stuff is junk. I designed a heatsink for thermoelectric cooling, and only the Chinese could make it to specification. I tried North American aluminum extruders and none would consider the fins per inch I had designed (they wanted to do half), and the Chinese said yes right away. Plus the Chinese flatness was well within the required spec. So it may be a rarity but sometimes they do a better job that North American suppliers.

[ADMIN EDIT]

Political comment deleted

[ADMIN EDIT]

Political comment deleted

I started my working life as an apprentice tool room engineer for the UK's leading bearing manufacturer - RHP Bearings
One of the tasks I was given was to evaluate the quality of the Japanese bearings compared to our own versions, this was in around 1980. They were inferior but not by much.
In 1990 we were bought out by a Japanese company - NSK bearings, by then their products were far superior to ours.

By 1996 I was the Quality Assurance Manager for the plant I was based at and I was able to visit Japan for a number of weeks to see how they achieved the levels of quality that were beyond us. Training and investment in capable processes.

Sadly we were unable to mirror their success, economics, politics and culture got the better of us and the factory closed in 2001

Around that time I was carrying out analysis of cheap Chinese copy bearings, the quality was poor then.... but thats 20 years ago.....

ps
NSK bearings had a plant at Ann Arbor, I never got chance to go, I hope its still there?

My point is we do not know the quality of the backing other than that, other than that we should be good.

I can recall a story of the founder of Honda. Back in the 50's and 60's if anything (toys, cars, anything) broke for any reason it had to be "made in Japan". Mr. Honda set his life goal to turn that perspective around, and he has done (with the help from many) his job. Sure, not everything from China is junk, but the impact on global manufacturing is huge.

I am not interested in working in a communist society for a buck a week!

Most major companies have there products made in China to a specific spec and the quality is as good as anywhere else. I used to work for Cisco Systems and most of there hardware was made there. That being said they do flood the market with crappier items. I just bought a Momo Prototipo Chinese copy. It’s obviously not as good, but looks good enough. It was only $60.00 on wish. Same thing with Harbor Freight aka China freight. There tools are great for the hobbyist.

Thanks to the admins for deleting the political crap and not locking this thread. I do agree with most of the political comments, but it’s not constructive. We do need more product reviews and recommendations.

How about for $100k a year? What about $200k? $1M a year? $1B ?

You can sell your body or you can sell your mind. . . Probably misquoted from somewhere that I don’t care to be bothered to look up. However, the point remains.

Bottom line - it’s all about who’s name is on the box, the spec they are made to, and whether the name on the box is controlling the quality.

My sentiments align with 930cabman. In the 60s, the stuff from Japan was junk. But by the 80s, every business school was talking about Japan, their attention to detail and quality. China will spend billions subsidizing their manufacturing industry, to ultimately create quality products. Their stuff may be junk NOW but they are too big to ignore.

Not many know the best BBS wheels no longer come from Germany. The forged mag and other high-end stuff comes from BBS Motorsport in Japan.

There aren't many printers who can do our product in North America, and many won't even bid on it when they get the specs. I have no doubt that there are printers in China that can match or exceed our North American vendor's quality, and for less money (and maybe a lot less). The shipping delay, and idea of shipping trees there and paper back doesn't sit well with me—but quality in this case may actually be in China's favor.

Sad but true. In the 60’s my dad would tell me “made in Japan” was junk and to look for “made in the USA”. Less than 20 years later the opposite was true. My kids work at grocery stores and they complain because of unions they can’t get fired and work with a bunch of losers.

in the 19th century, "made in germany" meant junk. believe it or not.

after WW2, "made in japan" meant the same thing.

whether china goes forward the same way remains to be seen.

given they have successfully landed on the moon (ok a robot but...) and are chasing the usa to mars, i'd say there is a fair chance they can produce military grade quality when they want to and at least for their own consumption.

i heard there were fake bosch spark plugs floating around a few years ago.
the electrodes broke off and i leave it your imagination as to the consequences.

Dont hide behind ADMIN??
Who deleted mine, but none of the others?

What does that matter? You were crossing the allowed boundary, so accept and move on.

Don`t hide behind ADMIN??
Who deleted mine, but none of the others?

If I said something about ?
.... is that ok?

I think the moral to this story is that it is very difficult to make quality parts and be able to sell them at a semi comparable price range in most countries like the US, Canada, Germany etc. China can just make it cheaper. I see this happening with the import of the vintage speed mufflers versus my product where I have at any given time 50 to 100k in parts in inventory(raw materials) but with the prices that we all deal with in the US I am typically 100-300 dollars more expensive for a "comparable" product. I am NOT driving a new Porsche and fine with that but the disparity in price is the cost of goods, supplies etc here in the US and many other countries vs some of the Asian manufacturers.

It is what it is. My point is that if some US manufacturers made quality bearings for our car I would choose that. Not to say that the other market's can't make quality parts. I had some fantastic QSC cylinders in my turbo years ago that were really really nice.

Jumping into the fray...

Ordered front wheel bearings from PMB last month. Box says FAG brand.
Inner set was made in China, outer set made in Vietnam.

The ones I pulled out were SFK made in Germany (possibly original, or at least 30 years old..)