Does it really matter?
There are rubbish parts made everywhere and quality parts made everywhere.

Not everything out of China is garbage doomed to fail!

 

When I worked for a large industrial chiller manufacturer, they moved their screw compressor rotor manufacture to China (licensed technology from Maskiner Rotor of Sweden). Initially it was a bit of a disaster, with over 30% in-service failure rate.

Within a year, the Chinese had got their shit sorted and their screw compressor performance exceeded the units manufactured in USA. The Chinese rotor grinding was a work of art and reliability was exceptional.

Within a few years, the USA factory was closed. A Chinese investment syndicate bought the company.

There are some very very good engineers in China, they are no mugs and as stated, not everything coming out of China is cheap tat.

 

Made in Germany sounds more reliable than Made in China i suppose.
If i knew that in advance, I wouldn't buy the Made in China ones

Someone else though may prefer to buy the Made in China/Turkey/whatever.

But it's good to know first, and then decide

 

The location of production makes no difference, it's the quality of the item and it's relation to cost that matters and even then a higher cost does not = quality.

 

Materials science is the same the world over.......

Manufacturing processes are also the same.........

Machine tools are the same.......as is the software that drives them

Labour rates are very different. Thats why everything can be produced more cheaply in China, it has nothing to do with lower quality, unless you are talking about knock-offs/copies.

In the 1970's the Japanese were playing the same game and soon started showing us a more efficient way which is why our manufacturing base got subsequently killed off. Datsun cars rusted before your eyes for example, whereas modern Nissans are very well made. British motorcycles were killed off too until John Bloor revived the Triumph name years later under new management and a totally new product range.

 

Materials science is the same the world over.......

Manufacturing processes are also the same.........

Machine tools are the same.......as is the software that drives them

Labour rates are very different. Thats why everything can be produced more cheaply in China, it has nothing to do with lower quality, unless you are talking about knock-offs/copies.

In the 1970's the Japanese were playing the same game and soon started showing us a more efficient way which is why our manufacturing base got subsequently killed off. Datsun cars rusted before your eyes for example, whereas modern Nissans are very well made. British motorcycles were killed off too until John Bloor revived the Triumph name years later under new management and a totally new product range.

Nope can't agree with that, of the many factors to consider tolerances and grade of materials used at the top of the list, is a linglong tyre as good as Michelin made tyre, the tooling and process maybe the same but it ends at that point,

 

Tyre compounds and carcass development are a closely guarded secret, so thats hardly a fair comparison. A Jingchen ditchfinder cannot match the technology in a Michelin, Pirelli or Continental etc they are simply years behind.

As for tolerances, it depends on the process or application as to how large the tolerances are and thus how expensive the product becomes, the same applies to surface finishes.

Set a suitable tolerance for the job and I'd wager the Chinese can meet it and at a lower price per unit cost than we can.

Where we specialise now is in new product development and bespoke design solutions (which we sub out to China for cheap production in our stupidity, only for them to reverse-engineer our designs).

 

As a general rule, genuine parts made by the same company will have the same quality control standards regardless of where its components are created, or the final product is assembled.

(p.s. just my 0.0002p-worth, but I would be more-wary of a part which claims to be made by VW in Germany to TüV-approved standards, than a pattern part made to the same standards in China; if I was going to create "fake" parts, I would make sure they're stamped as being made in a nice Western country with high engineering standards... :mrgreen: )

 

Let's not forget, that apart from the QS the TT wasn't made in Germany either.......

 

Let's not forget, that apart from the QS the TT wasn't made in Germany either.......

Even then it was only assembled in Germany.