I rebuilt nearly the entire Jeep over the past 2 years. I don't mind spending time fixing things that break—a reasonable expectation for a 28-year-old car. What drives me crazy is replacing the original AC compressor with a new one, only to have the "new one" fail 16 months in. Yes, it had a warranty, but the time, frequency, and effort to replace cheap parts make them much more expensive in the end. If I did not have the skills to do repairs myself, I would be broke. Is there a post with a list of brands to avoid or dependable brands to look for?
WTB quality over price
- Thread starter Hacker412
- Start date
Basically 95% of anything from China is substandard IMO. By todays standards good luck with that one rebuilding a Jeep . I personally will never buy anything from Crown, Omix, Procomp, Autozone, Quadratec, and some others that elude me at the moment.
I have a fan in our house that we use year round it was made in 1948.
It has a port on the top that ever month or so i put a couple of drops of 3in1 eletric motor oil in.
They just do not make stuff to last like they did in past.
Here is the ad for it.
It has out lasted the warranty by 12 times.
Just look at the new cars that are designed to fail just out of warranty ie the Fords with rubber oil pump belts running in oil..
Our closest Neighbor drives a 1929Ford Model a pickup truck,it is powered by a 289 that he put in it back when Nixon was presidetnt.
It is not a show truck but just a daily driver that has been his daily drive for the past 55 years.
It has a port on the top that ever month or so i put a couple of drops of 3in1 eletric motor oil in.
They just do not make stuff to last like they did in past.
Here is the ad for it.
It has out lasted the warranty by 12 times.
Just look at the new cars that are designed to fail just out of warranty ie the Fords with rubber oil pump belts running in oil..
Our closest Neighbor drives a 1929Ford Model a pickup truck,it is powered by a 289 that he put in it back when Nixon was presidetnt.
It is not a show truck but just a daily driver that has been his daily drive for the past 55 years.
@mrblaine, I know you vehemently hate Cardone. Are there any reputable brands for replacement / remanufactured parts that are still decent, or are they all crappy?
By the way, Tucker's latest guest (Dave Collumn) touches on this subject to some degree. While he's not talking about replacement automotive parts, he goes into detail about what a collapsing empire looks like.
His prediction (and I agree with this based on what I've witnessed around me in the past decade or so) is that we'll witness society fall apart from the middle. It will become harder-and-harder to find competent workers or people who are very skilled at a particular trade. More-and-more you'll have to know how to do everything yourself.
I concur with this. Just finding a mechanic that knows what he's doing is hard enough as it is. Try hiring employees that will show up when they're supposed to, know what they're doing, etc. We know the manager at the local Dairy Queen and he is constantly lamenting about how it's impossible to find good workers. He said they're almost all teens and they have to be supervised by an adult at all time or they'll burn the place down unknowingly. They regularly do not show up to work for days on end (they don't call in either), then out of nowhere they come in to work acting with excuses such as, "sorry, I just didn't feel like coming into work".
All around us you can see it happening. WIth the birth rate at an ever increasing decline, more men simply "tuned out" from the work force, and millions of low-skill, welfare state illegal immigrants, the future doesn't look very bright. This is of course happening all throughout the western world and if I had to guess it's only going to get worse.
It's hard to find quality anything these days. That's unfortunate because I'm one of the people who is always willing to pay more for a high quality part that would last me decades.
His prediction (and I agree with this based on what I've witnessed around me in the past decade or so) is that we'll witness society fall apart from the middle. It will become harder-and-harder to find competent workers or people who are very skilled at a particular trade. More-and-more you'll have to know how to do everything yourself.
I concur with this. Just finding a mechanic that knows what he's doing is hard enough as it is. Try hiring employees that will show up when they're supposed to, know what they're doing, etc. We know the manager at the local Dairy Queen and he is constantly lamenting about how it's impossible to find good workers. He said they're almost all teens and they have to be supervised by an adult at all time or they'll burn the place down unknowingly. They regularly do not show up to work for days on end (they don't call in either), then out of nowhere they come in to work acting with excuses such as, "sorry, I just didn't feel like coming into work".
All around us you can see it happening. WIth the birth rate at an ever increasing decline, more men simply "tuned out" from the work force, and millions of low-skill, welfare state illegal immigrants, the future doesn't look very bright. This is of course happening all throughout the western world and if I had to guess it's only going to get worse.
It's hard to find quality anything these days. That's unfortunate because I'm one of the people who is always willing to pay more for a high quality part that would last me decades.
The car wizard on YT recently had a Jeep in the shop for the AC. The loathed Compass I think,. The key was talking about compressor failure and all it's metal bits getting distributed through the rest of the system, only to find their way back to the new compressor, destroying it a while later. His point was if the compressor fails, everything gets replaced.
Not sure how your previous compressor failed, but something to consider.
Also alot of aftermarket parts suck and price isn't always a good indicator of quality.
I do not hate Cardone. They are not worth the effort that would take. I am acutely aware of their shoddy practices when it comes to rebuilding stuff and as such neither use or recommend their parts. No idea on the rest.
Only slightly on topic: About three years ago I THOUGHT that I had a bad alternator in a ‘95 GMC Sierra. I replaced it with a new, not rebuilt AC Delco unit. It turned out that the alternator was not the issue but after fixing my wiring harness I left the new alternator in. After only a few months I started having an over-charging issue. I checked voltage output at the alternator and, of course, my nice new ACD unit was putting out over 17 volts. It was so hot that I couldn’t remove it with thick gloves on. I ended up removing it by holding it with a couple of large pliers. I set it on the garage floor and reinstalled the twenty-ish year old Auto Zone rebuild that I had previously removed. It’s still working fine. An hour after removing the ACD alternator it was still too hot to touch. I wish I had checked the case temperature at the time but it wasn’t a priority.
Bottom line for me was that I no longer think that cheap and off-brand necessarily equates to low quality nor do I think that expensive OEM brand necessarily means you’re getting a good product.
Bottom line for me was that I no longer think that cheap and off-brand necessarily equates to low quality nor do I think that expensive OEM brand necessarily means you’re getting a good product.
I've taken the opposite approach.
When a quality part doesn't exist find the cheapest part you can. Realistically most parts are made in the same Chinese factory and are simply binned for quality. The "better" stuff ends up with premium labels and high prices. But realistically it's all the same stuff.
Short of Black Magic Brakes parts I've just come to expect a high failure rate.
I think we have a forum post talking about quality parts. Flowkooler sourced Robert Shaw thermostats are good...for example.
I could name a few more but my sample size is 1.
-Mac
When a quality part doesn't exist find the cheapest part you can. Realistically most parts are made in the same Chinese factory and are simply binned for quality. The "better" stuff ends up with premium labels and high prices. But realistically it's all the same stuff.
Short of Black Magic Brakes parts I've just come to expect a high failure rate.
I think we have a forum post talking about quality parts. Flowkooler sourced Robert Shaw thermostats are good...for example.
I could name a few more but my sample size is 1.
-Mac
Years ago we took a train ride to SD from the central coast. In those back tracks of America thru no mans land we passed a few of the parts rebuilders warehouses. One of the big Carb rebuilders who I cant recall the name of was of of them. That was the last time I bought rebuilt anything. Mountains of carbs in metal cages in the elements. I can visualize some dude needing a new throttle plate or??, and rifling thru hundreds of "that looks close" carbs to slap one together.
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