rbertalotto

Just received my new XRF Ball Joints from "The Tire Club" www.thetireclub.com

$211.00 delivered..........

They look nice but I was surprised to see they are made in Tiawan. I thought they were made in Canada for some reason.

nelrod

If I were a tire, yeah I would go out with them, next pic, leave a little bit of wrapper on, leave some room for imagination.

bansh-eman

I don't know why everyone is so scared about things made over seas. Just because they have been outsourced does not automatically mean they are garbage. As long as the manufacter follows the requirement set forth by the company, they will be fine. And if XRP tests as many of them as they claim, then you have nothing to worry about. Outsourcing those is one of the biggest reasons you can buy them for 200 and change.

Skyd Ram

They are real sexy when they look like this:

bansh-eman

And the cost of those sexy pups are double that of the XRP units...

Edit: Scratch that, almost tripple...

OOPS

And one of the big reasons for unemployment in the USA!!!!

Dieselhed

Exactly.

bansh-eman

It's a double edged sword. If all these jobs were in the US, the cost of everyday things would be through the roof and no one could afford any of it. I used to be blind to how the business end of it work like many of you, until I took some business and logistics classes in college.

Skyd Ram

It is getting increasingly harder to get the off shore plants to follow these requirements. I have dealt with many manufacturers that were sorry that they got involved with overseas manufacturing. By the time that you consider the cost and time of shipping and the huge timeframe involved if QC finds something wrong it ends up being a wash in the end. A case in point involves overseas casting. I went through this with a manufacturer that I worked for and a few the I purchased products from.

Scenario:
USA company decides to have a part(lets say a wheel) cast overseas. In the overseas casting business you have a choice of buying and owning your own molds or having the casting plant own the molds. If you own the molds they cannot be used for anything other than your product and if you chose to stop using the first casting company, you take the molds with you. If you do this, it is a great upfront expense for the molds and if you take them with you to another manufacturer you find out that they still want you to buy new molds since they don't/like trust the molds that came from another company and they won't guarantee the final product. If you have the manufacturer own the mold, your up front costs are lower but if you choose to stop doing business with the plant, you run the risk of them selling the mold to a competitor or most likely a cheap knock off company. Most of these problems don't affect the end consumer but they do make it a huge PITA for the US company in both cost and time.

The problem for the customer comes in when the product coming from overseas doesn't meet QC standards. Does the US company halt all sales and production until the problem is solved even though it could take 2-9 months. Or do they find the lower standards acceptable to keep product in the chain? I'll bet the latter happens more than the first option.

I guess that it sometimes comes down to company image as well. A huge company like Moog is still perceived as making great parts even though many of us have known for quite a while that their AAM 9.5 ball joints are bordering on being dangerous. This portion of their business is a drop in the bucket it will take a very long time for this to tarnish their image because of all of the guys with f-150's and your grandfathers who swear by Moog.

Now take companies like Carli and Dynatrac who instead of just slightly improving on the factory design with better materials, they actually both come up with all new designs and use both some in-house manufacturing,assembly, and quality control along with some outsourcing to local American Aerospace firms for some of the maching and heat treating. They are in the disadvantage of having to pay US labor costs and probably devoting more man hours to the products than overseas manufacturer. But if they can build a product that adds enough value to support the higher cost, then usually the market will bear it. They both have huge reputations riding on products like this so trust me, they QC problems that escape them will be few and far between. Plus when these QC issues arise, they will see them for themselves instead of months after the customers are having problems. Both companies have delayed the release of products while they were working towards perfection.

Notice I didn't say anything about employing US citizens to make these parts? That is just an added plus. Both companies are growing and have both recently hired additional workers.

dezeldog

Yup, the new world economy is a beautiful thing. It accomplishes two things...one: it strips our manufacturing base form this country and two: you can't have a trade agreement with a country that has a lower standard of living than yours....."water seeks it's own level". By elevating theirs you are lowering yours. Now here's what this "new world economy" has done. This country has invented:
airplane, automobile, light bulb, electricity, telephone....well I think you get the idea. And now we can't even manufacture a pair of tennis shoes- all because someone said that this "world economy" is good for us. I think that Skyd about covered the quality aspect of it....Sorry for the long rant.

Jim

bansh-eman

I do agree with what you said, however many of the large firms that are having products manufactured overseas have American employees that are based in said country working the QC portion of the process. Their job is to catch the poor products before they ever hit shipment. This happens a lot more than the average American thinks. Also a lot of products are not actually assembled overseas, they are brought into the US and stored inside Free Trade Areas, where the companies do not pay taxes on the parts until they are assembled. The reason is the final product oddly enough is assessed to be less valuable then the raw parts. This also offers more savings.

And this doesn’t go just for auto hardware. Computers, electrical equipment, computer software, you name. Now days anything and everything benefits at some level from outsourcing.

dezeldog

bansh-eman, I can tell that you bought into the "world economy" thing. Well let me know what your job oppertunities are once you get out of The Corps. Not a real big demand for cannon shooters in civilian life. There are some real skilled friends of mine that can't find a job....two yrs lookin. Unemployment here in Mi. is around 12-15% depending on who you believe. And this used to be the "motor city" of this country.

PS. I sincerly thank you for your service to our country.

Jim

bansh-eman

I am already out. And I am also looking for a job. I didn't "buy in" to anything. It's a fact. I little good old fashion business school and logistics management major goes along ways my friend.

If you got a little spare time, and don't mind reading a little, grab your self the book called "The World Is Flat". Great book and it explains alot of things that the majority of Americans fail to realize about outsourceing, offshoreing, and overseas manufactureing. Without having to sit in classes for 4 years.

Like I said, I used to think along the exact same lines as you guys. And being a grown man I am very capable of reading through the muck and the mud to decipher the garbage. Some of the things that were presented in my courses I didn't have a change of heart with because you could see that they were directly related to politics, and nothing more. The topic we are speaking of, was not one of them.

dezeldog

I to am a grown man, more than twice your age. The world is round and good luck in your pursuit of a decent paying.

I told my 3 children to do two things while raising my grand children. 1) teach them to speak chinese and arabic 2) send them to CEO school. I think that about covers it.

Jim

WhiteMule

I do not wish to argue this point, so this will be my only post in this thread.

You are most likely too young to know it but all of the "everyday" goods that you speak of were made here in the US. The people who were willing to work did not have the problems that you speak of in buying the products that were made here in the US. The main reason for this was that jobs were a lot more plentiful than they are today. How long will it be before we can not afford the everyday things, not because we are unwilling to work, but because there are no jobs left in which the population can earn a decent living. In my opinion we are heading in this direction already. The mindset of corporate America is just as you speak in that they will outsource all of the labor to foreign countries as long as it makes the bottom line for their company better. They do these things with total disregard for what this does to the American worker and their families. This is a double edged sword in it's own right. At some point, there is no middle class to buy the goods that America was built on due to this mindset, sales become so poor that the whole company is moved overseas.

There was a time, not so very long ago, that there was a large push to "Buy American" made goods and products. It was understood then that the goods made here in the US were of superior quality to those made overseas and people were reasonably more likely to pay a little extra to to get a better quality product that would not be broken when you got it home or that lasted longer than the cheaply made foreign goods. This is the way that Wal-Mart was built. They used advertising to promote the better quality of American goods for a fair price. They then put their competitors that were selling foreign goods out of business. Now, there is not enough of these goods produced here left and they are selling the products that they themselves advertised as being inferior. Their sales pitch now is only concerned with a cheap price to the consumer.

Americans in general, but mainly the younger generations, need to wake up before it is too late.

I wish you luck in your job search. The market is flooded with college educated people with experience that have been layed off in favor of outsourcing the labor that they once did. If you don't belive me, try calling Chrysler customer service and see what country your call is answered in.