The place of manufacture JUMPED out at me on this tie rod end. I know it is the way of the world.

Reminds me of the shuttle astronaut I talked to. I asked what was the scariest part of the trip to space. He said " Knowing the low cost bidder built the damm thing".

Decided to splurge for some nice Brembo rotors for my BMW. They were made...wait for it...in China.

Hopefully there all built to a good spec. China produces junk and high quality products built to spec. My biggest concern is political issues where they might cut off a particular country and screw them on parts. I don't want to create a political rant, but the US relationship with China is up and down.

I don't understand why everyone assumes China = junk. Do we really believe that Lemforder doesn't still control the quality?

Is there data to show that the parts no longer meet the same validation test requirements? Would we (914's owners are notoriously thrifty) be willing to pay double or triple to have it manufactured in the US or Germany? Especially for a hobby cars that usually will never see mileage that would represent full design life of a component part like a tie rod end.

Don't get me wrong, I'd love for the manufacturing to have stayed in the US and Germany. What we are seeing now is a fullfillment of the policies that began as far back as the 70's and 80's.

I used to work regularly in this plant that made ball Joints and tie rods for Chrysler. I'm bettering no one shed a tear when it closed and silently slipped away back in 2009.
https://www.allpar.com/threads/maxwell-chry...e-plant.229401/

Regulation, labor costs, energy costs, and taxation are but a few of the reasons it became unprofitable for that plant to continue to operate. That plant isn't alone. They have been slipping away, unnoticed, all across the US and Germany.

You don't even want to know how many parts from China are contained in the vehicles bought and built for the military.

Politics and economics matter. I understand why they are frowned upon on this site and I try my best to stay out of trouble with all the moderators.

I was not meaning this to be political. Just stating the fact that production had moved. The amount of parts that have switch to the other side of the globe are increasing everyday. Just look at the number of factory Porsche parts that say made in China.

I certainly didn't mean to imply you were political. Apologize if it came off that way. If anyting, I'm the one that's at blame but I don't mean for it to be political either.

You are correct -- the moved of manufacturing to China is well underway and not easily reversed at this point. My main point was to say that until we have history with the China made parts that we (the hobby community) shouldn't assume they are junk. Like many, I'd rather not find out the hard way but with a company as well respected as Lemforder, I suspect the parts will be fine.

Same with the Brembo parts. Back when I was actively doing brakes, Brembo was soucing rotors out of Brazil. Not surprised that they are now coming out of China.

The bottom line is that the compnies that have recognizeable brand image will be the least likely to simply outsource design, materials, and quality control vs. off-name aftermarket parts. Let's not panic.

And thank you for the public service announcement -- for those that want German parts now is the time to stock up. So next time Mark offers up Lemforder German parts -- Jump on em'

Are you aware that probably 100% of the cell phones and computers being used to view this website are made in China???

I would be amazed if Lemfoerder has even a couple of inspectors on the production line in China. And even if they are there, they are probably wined, dined, and bribed to look the otrher way.

Ansbacher

Given that they are a German company and they do realize that their brand stands for quality they are probably very heavy on the QC side.
If their parts aren't to the highest standards they are no different than any other and there are lower brands with out the QC that sell for less. I'd argue that if they have made this move it would kill them to have inferior parts.

If you look at the aluminum extrusion Marketwire I have most of my experience from). The East started making extrusions cheaper using low tech presses and being subsidized by governments ( not just China, Malaysia was one).

They since have invested in high tolerance automated presses. They have the capability of producing very high quality tight tolerance parts.
I recently had issues with SAPA fudging certification on extrusion alloys. How we caught them was the large thresholds. When we anodized them we had discolorations. Turns out they were mixed with higher recycled content that actually has a very small amount of ferris material.

We were able to have new bullet extruded, but there were military and even some Boeing parts that were out of spec.
Forced them to reorganize the local division as the liability was back breaking. We no longer use them.

Greed and underhanded dealings are not just a "eastern" issue.

This is key here.

One of my winter hobbies is back country snowboarding. To do this, there's a thing called a "splitboard," a type of snowboard that splits into skis and lets you walk uphill in snow using specialized bindings that are made to be extremely light and have high tolerances and reliability.

The brand I use is called Karakoram, and I have their top of the line binding, which costs around $1100 without my friends discount. All of their parts are made from high strength aircraft aluminum in a factory in China, then assembled here in Washington.

The Chinese plant sometimes tries to sneak in shittier aluminum. My friends at Karakoram have shown me the parts, how they can tell, and the result of a binding breaking under stress due to lower quality shit.

Point being, Lemförder probably keeps a close eye on things and fixes it when they notice quality degradation.