Chinese quality control (yes I know!)

[dogshome]

My final drive has sprung a leak. The O rings I used on the brake arm were allowing oil to pass onto the brake shoes. Upon inspection, they are 1.8mm in diameter, not 2mm. I have some other (Chinese) O rings and measured them before fitting tonight and they are 2mm.

How to put this?    The shaft is now not sloppy in the hole and longer lasting performance is restored 


I understand how Chinese quality control works having been there. A tech pulled a fresh set of Allen keys out to remove a part, the key rounded immediately. Without a flinch, he threw the lot into the South China Sea, opened a fresh set, and carried on. Not a comment about the bad ones, the second set was better and that is all that counted.

[georgesgiralt]

Hello,
I know I'm very very late on this subject. But I had read it then and recently I was thinking about quality control in Chinese factories.
I would like to know the defect rate for factories making under contract "things" for foreigners (Apple electronic, BMW engines, you name it) and how this compare with European or US factories?
I own a Chinese brand Chinese made electronic multi meter  since more than 15 years. Faultless and recently checked against a calibration standard. Spot on. IT replaced a Fluke (made in USA) that failed totally right after the warranty run out.  (I complained to Fluke at that time and got a polite "go to hell" answer. So I bought the Chinese thing because it was so cheap the risk was minimal...
Having worked in the industry, I wonder how come you can make Allen keys,some of them good some of them bad on the same production line ? Idem for more complex parts. For example an engine made for BMW in a factory making quite the same engine for a Chinese brand having different building quality ?
I'm very puzzled.
So if anyone has an explanation, I will be glad to hear it !

[Justin B.]

They can build good stuff but probably the price-point they have to meet for a lot of companies contributes heavily.  As far as Fluke goes I have a Fluke 73 that I bought in the mid 80s that is still going strong.  I remember remarking to an instructor how all of a certain lathe looked identical except for color.  He told me that they were all built together and after QC checks it was decided what color to paint since the ones that had a higher quality build would be for premium brands like Jet and Grizzly while the "sub-par units would be for HF and other discount sellers.  The only thing I found bad on my HF lathe was what was apparently a casting defect was filled in with Bondo before painting!

[dogshome]

I've never had a dodgy Wera screwdriver or Facom spanner. But they are 2 or 3 times the price of the Chinese competition. How many rejects do they produce? I've no idea! If Wera made o rings, they would always be sized correctly and twice the price - I'm maybe paying for that reject bin rather than just a higher quality product.

Or other more sensitive reasons to do with how labour is treated east of the EU.

Soft Allen keys? Bad batch of steel, error in hardening and tempering when the furnace went off? Different sub-supplier? Under paid and mistreated worker?

[Justin B.]

Bad batch of steel, error in hardening and tempering when the furnace went off? Different sub-supplier? Under paid and mistreated worker?

All of the above?

[Tony Smith]

I have bought my fair share of Chinese stuff and have experienced the full gamut of both manufacturing quality and design quality.

Two examples spring to mind, the first being some LED 240 volt lights  where on the circuit board a 240 volt track had less than a millimetre clearance from DC earth track. As I found by personal experience, one unluckily placed insect and the whole thing was live.

The second involved a number of brass fittings to allow the use of cheap propane canisters to fuel expensive camping stoves and lights. One of the things I bought was a drop in replacement gas burner for the spirit burner in a Trangia stove which at about $10 represented a huge saving over the plus $150 asked for identical looking devices with well known brand names on them.

It didn't work and examination revealed the reason was that none of the brass fittings had been drilled to actually allow gas to flow.  Fortunately it was only the work of moments to remove the fittings and drill them on the lathe.

[dogshome]

Hi Tony, I have one of those adaptors for my blowlamp. I can use Propane now on a warm day for most jobs, but like yours, I had to put a drill through before it would work. I was looking for some weird side port or compressed 'solid' flame retarder. Nope just they forgot to drill it 

[Burt]

Dad bought a 1/2" socket set back in the 70s compete with metal case whilst in PNG.  I remember it very well as it was in use constantly on all sorts of things.  I saw it the other day and it is still in use on cars and stuff. 

It was built in Taiwan and not Ch-y-na.