Worst Parts.

[Rem18]

Well said Magnus.

 

I have a lot to with professional mechanic friends here as I rely on their facilities and they all moan about British cars and how they need a lot of maintenance . Here its all Porsche talk and Italian cars. How you can drop the engine on a 911 with 4 bolts and blah blah.

 

But when I need anything I can get near all, even for my Tr5.

I am working on my Michelotti Pura this week which is a hand made car, its very well made as its basically a F3 road car so its very tough and over spec. 200bhp on 650kgs all round race brakes and all sorts you can see here if you want. http://michelottipura.strikingly.com/

 

Its all based on Alfa 75 Turbo Evo and they only made 1,000 75's with that spec.. The stuff it uses is very good, but as the 80's Alfa are very much like British cars in that the stuff is good but was badly assembled.

But you try and find even the right spark plug for the Alfa engine now, let alone all the electronics that ran it. The Pura runs a zf gearbox out of the Lancia 037 rally car, can take 600bhp, but if one day it packs up it will be like £3k to even start fixing.

I have A BMW as day to day car, very reliable. But I didnt use it over the winter and 3of4 electric wind plastic brackets that hold the glass to the window mechanism broke due to sticky glass. I will repair myself with plastic ties, but if I went to BMW they would charge £800 each window to repair!

Stick that in your TR and repair it!

 

You have hit the nail on the head regards what I was trying to provoke. The sellers of our parts would do very well to specify whats worth buying and not at times.

 

T

 

That original Triumph parts (probably all English cars at the time actually) had great quality is a fact.

When I grew up all we could hear about UK cars was their bad quality, so much so that most of them was taken off the market in the 70s, Japanese cars on the other hand was so good, and took over.

My first car was a 12 year old Toyota that I partly had to restore due to collision damage, rust and general wear and tear. The metal itself on the Toyota was thin and rusted through very easily, in addition to that a lot of screws, bolts and nuts was rusted together and often broke off when dismantling, so for me a 17 year old lad with little experience at the time I struggled to get it apart, together was easier as the Toyota parts fitted nicely.

When I some years ago bought a Triumph that was more than 40 years old I expected more of the same trouble I remember having with the Toyota, as the car was more than 3 times the age!

But not one bolt or screw was stuck, not one broke off, most things could be taken apart and repaired, not like the Japanese which was not built to be repaired but a complete new unit must be bought, I guess this comes down to the use of quality materials and well engineering.

So who got the best quality? I think the quality of the British cars was actually good at least well engineered with good quality materials, the bad assembly practices on the other hand....


The quality of the new parts is a result of the race to the bottom in regards of the demand from the public of cheaper and cheaper parts.

This problem could maybe partly be solved if the suppliers actually inform customers of the differences of a good quality expensive parts rather than the cheap and bad parts.

The parts are usually marketed with just price, with no explanation how much better it is than the cheap parts, without information most people will assume they are the same, and choose the cheap part.



Magnus

Edited June 1, 2018 by Rem18

[acaie]

I would fully support the comments made on rubber parts. I completed the restoration of the rolling chassis of my TR4a about eighteen months ago. The ball joints and track rod ends were new, supplied by one of the main suppliers. A couple of weeks ago I had the front wheel off and noticed a problem. The ball joint rubber was split. Further checking revealed that the track rod end boots were also split. All the rubber covers have now been replaced by ones supplies by balljointboots.co.uk which seem much better. Fortunately the metal parts seem reasonable quality.

So the original boots had covered a grand total of about 50 feet, the car having been wheeled out of the garage a couple of times. The photos below show how bad they are.

 

Barry

+1 for balljointboots.co.uk

[Rem18]

I know maybe its unpopular to complain and as I said in another place I was asked to remove a post where I named names.

But come we spend good money and an awful loot of time. And as I said before if we sold dangerous food we would be in trouble.

No harm in people being accountable is there?.

[Waldi]

I know maybe its unpopular to complain and as I said in another place I was asked to remove a post where I named names.

But come we spend good money and an awful loot of time. And as I said before if we sold dangerous food we would be in trouble.

No harm in people being accountable is there?.

 

Life is tough Tony:)

If I make a recommendation for a suppliers part A , all good in here.

But if I say the suppliers part B is of poor quality that be comes difficult on this forum (although it is sometimes done).

And to some extend I agree with that: as an example, it may be me who damaged the part by poor knowledge or having ordered the wrong part (off course WE never do that).

Next, many readers of this forum then get the impression this supplier is bad, the information is here for many years, even if the parts quality was ok. A supplier cannot defend himself on here.

 

That is why the PQI system is a good tool, if you cannot resolve it yourselve with the supplier, which should be the first step. Roger and friends investigate, do a technicall and independent assessment and then contact the supllier(s) to resolve the issue and provide feedback.

 

In reality, we do not always make the extra effort (speaking for myself, I have submitted only one PQI, but had several poor quality parts supplied).

 

 

The above results in a catch 22 situation and not much will change Im afraid.

 

Regards,

Waldi

[Rem18]

Oh No Waldi I totally agree with you and we have discussed some stuff in private.

Also a good suppliers reputation could be ruined in 2 posts. I dont mean for us to be too harsh just fair.

But you have to be accountable too.

Maybe Roger et al, should do a post on here regards the PQI so people can learn more about the possibility.

I am sure Roger would love to get bombarded hahahha.

Seriously it might be good to have somehwre to stick some stuff.

 

T

Life is tough Tony:)
If I make a recommendation for a suppliers part A , all good in here.
But if I say the suppliers part B is of poor quality that be comes difficult on this forum (although it is sometimes done).
And to some extend I agree with that: as an example, it may be me who damaged the part by poor knowledge or having ordered the wrong part (off course WE never do that).
Next, many readers of this forum then get the impression this supplier is bad, the information is here for many years, even if the parts quality was ok. A supplier cannot defend himself on here.

That is why the PQI system is a good tool, if you cannot resolve it yourselve with the supplier, which should be the first step. Roger and friends investigate, do a technicall and independent assessment and then contact the supllier(s) to resolve the issue and provide feedback.

In reality, we do not always make the extra effort (speaking for myself, I have submitted only one PQI, but had several poor quality parts supplied).


The above results in a catch 22 situation and not much will change Im afraid.

Regards,
Waldi