Junk Aftermarket/Reproduction BS

I don`t have much money lately,and when I buy something I try to choose what I buy carefully. Well last night I got around to installing the "high quality" reproduction chrome front bumper on my F100. Well,it fit soooo bad that I took it right back off.

Tonight I go to install the ACC molded carpet,made to specifically fit the 61-64 Ford trucks. Spent 3-hours trying to get it to fit,and gave up. Best I can figure is that it fits 1961--197? and is trim to fit (if your lucky) on earlier models.

Thats a bunch of $$$ down the drain on crap fitting products.

Then there was the new aftermarket windshield I tried to install a month ago,it ended up being 3/4" of inch too narrow across the top and wouldn`t even hold a seal.

Oh,then the door anti-rattle/felt kit. The chrome trim on the runners is falling off after 3-weeks of being installed. Not to mention none of it wanted to go together right at all.

This is ridiculous. We spend hard earned money on products that are complete crap. I am sure there has to be others that feel this way.

So come on,tell me,what did you buy for your car/truck that was a complete waste of money?

 

most repo stuff sucks, I try to buy good used or nos stuff now......but your stuck buying new for rubber parts. I couldn't find a painted '55 f100 front bumper in decent shape so I bought one, man it sucks BAD. I going to have to weld up holes and drill others, make some spacers....all because I want to powder coat them black.

 

I just finished up a 57 Chevy Cameo for a friend and he bought all new repop parts that were available for it figuring they would be better than redoing the chrome and stainless trim he had. What a bunch of junk! most of it ended up in the trash as nothing fit! every part had to be made to fit and the clips to attach them were junk also. he dug most of the originals up and had them straightened and polished or chromed. I tried to tell him not to buy the junk but he listened to the great sales people at the places! The one piece door window kit was such a joke it looked like a 3rd grader designed it! had to remake the front channel so it would attach right and not be a pain in the ass to install! If you guys get the urge to buy that junk get ready to do some work to make them fit, me i will stick to using oem parts and re-chrome or polish.

 

Thats a big part of the problem, if you just accept that the stuff is junk and dont return it and demand a refund the manufacturers will continue to make substandard parts. If everyone who thought there stuff was crap demanded a refund they would have to make higher quality stuff to stay in business. Never settle for third rate crap when you pay for quality. Your money is hard earned, use it to buy quality parts. It may cost a little more on the front side but will save you time and headaches in the long run.

 

Try calling Auto Custom Carpets. They are real good to work with. I sold their carpets for 6 years and rarely had any problems.

 

My floor repair panels for my 65 C-10 were 1.25 inches too narrow! When you put the body mount dimple where it was supposed to be - the rocker area didn't reach to the rocker area. I cut them straight down the middle and added a strip of metal the entire length - what a freegin joke!

 

Funny,real funny. Thats the garbage I bought.

 

I think the point being made is that they will try to make it right...

 

Not sure if this is the case, but the 60-62 body mount hole was further out compared to 63/66. Also, the GM floor support bracket that we call cab mounts, were left and rights. Repro is compromise clone to make one fit both sides.

You should have tried doing 60-66s back 20 years ago, the repro catalog places sold you a 67-72 cab mount which cannot be made to fit a 60-66. Those went in the trash along with inner/outer door repair panels. Only good for a farm beater...as the door could not close all the way.

 

One real problem with some reproduction Chevrolet tail light assemblies, which are quite pricey, is that they're too short.

http://www.trifive.com/forums/showthread.php?t=5358

http://www.trifive.com/forums/showthread.php?p=585292

 

What he said....Mutley for president!

 

I agree with Muttley; if it's shit quality, send it back for a refund and let them know you'll be spending your money elsewhere.

Also, if you're able to research replacement parts via the HAMB, etc. from other car guys, you may learn from someone else what NOT to buy and save yourself a heartache.

Before you buy repro parts, ask them if they'll honor a full refund if you're not satisfied with the parts once you receive them. If the answer is "no", then shop with your feet!

 

I was not trying to be funny and when you put ACC down I knew that you refering to Auto Custom Carpets. I was just saying that you might call them. In the 6 years that I sold their product at the parts store I worked at they never failed to make it right.

 

I've had trouble with weather stripping from a certain well known repro company. They've got nice catalogs though.

 

If you are looking for parts for your truck try Dennis Carpenter Reproduction.

 

You are 100% right! Yes i do return parts that do not fit all the time, i don't like throwing away money. But the guy that owns it says it is not worth his time, tried to explain why he should return it but no go, i guess it must be nice to have money to throw away! With all the problems we had with TCI on their frame it was me that went ahead and started shit with them over it and made them fix it, damn it, if i pay for something and they state direct fit, it had better be a direct fit and not need any "massaging" to make it fit! I don't see how some of these companies can sell this crap and sleep at night, i would be ashamed to put my name on any of it.

 

i bought a pair of aftermarket 34 ford fenders at a swapmeet a few years ago, they were in bare metal so i primmered them ,then waited another 2 years or so to try and fit them and now i'm mad beacuse they dont fit just like factory and the place i bought them wont take them back 3 years later!!!....oh wait,,that wasnt me,,i read that hear a while back,,,lol

 

The sad thing is that it wouldn't cost any more to make parts that fit than to make parts that don't fit. You know, drill the hole in the right place instead of the wrong place, simple stuff like that.

 

Having done this for a while now, i have come to the conclusion that when i order i am going to recieve pretty much a pile of junk - i am rarely disappointed. I just assume that i will have to modify/tweek/adjust/build to/orjust plain use it as raw material. I am not a pessimist by nature but i have heard every possible sales pitch and excuse known to modern man and have come to the conclusion that all aftermarket salesmen are cut from the same cloth and have bullshit dripping out thier ears and thier gospel is CYA. I have even had Classic Instruments deny ever having made a set of gages that i was working with until i sent them a picture of them! And i know they are on here and if they have a bone of contention/another story/different point of view then let them come forward and trot out thier bullshit and we'll all see a professional at thier best CYA mode.

 

I wonder if any of this comes from repop stuff being reverse-engineered from only a few examples that have been in use for a long time, under the assumption that they're all the same. Things move over time, so you might tool up for a part that fits perfectly on your own 1953 whatever, but then doesn't fit on anyone else's.

The OEMs tool up for new stuff to bolt up to new stuff, so the problem doesn't arise. OEM stuff might still fit better on old stuff because you can somehow "accelerate" the deterioration as per your car better than to match the unique deterioration of another car.

I'd say it's research that's lacking. I'd expect the better repop stuff to be developed from a wide variety of used and NOS examples, so the way it shifts over time is well understood.

 

it would cost a fortune to send real, original cars over to China so they could test fit the parts before finalizing production

 

A cheap ass Chinese electric antenna.I fought the bastage,and because I'm an antique radio guy,I thought I'd try one of my many Transoceanic all wave antennas.Worked like a freakin' champ.Now I just have to metal in the hole and I've got an idea to make it look cool.

 

Repops either don't fit or are inferior quality. I'll go without before using them. Those 56 Chevy tail lights go for around $400 and are 1/4" shorter then originals. I either use NOS or used parts only. Chinese repops made by small children are worthless. eBay a good source of used parts.

 

The repops that work are the ones that happen at a small scale locally, like the guy who pulls moulds off his own taillight lenses to resin-cast replicas for club members. Even then you can run into shrinkage problems, but the fellow club member would tell you that with apologies rather than ship a few thousand anyway.

And then there's the pattern stuff made on reject tooling in the hope that enough people will buy it, even though it doesn't fit so much badly as not at all, and then curse at it, throw it away, and buy dealership stuff without too much resentment because the pattern stuff was so cheap. I've got the theory that much of the pattern stuff is made alongside the OEM stuff in the same factory to give aftermarket stuff a bad rep and soften the buyer for dealership prices, recovering some tooling cost in the process.

 

One day we digitized an SP2 top, and loaded the info into a Hurko and made one out of wood - it was perfect in every respect. All we had to do is stick a chunk of aluminum in there and hit the 'start' button and the machine would crank them right out. Now we needed to sell them, we called a very well known retailer to see if he'd sell them for us. When we spoke to him he said he could get them made cheaper in china, i said we have a small shop and could work pretty cheap. He said 'boy, you don't understand what i mean by cheap!'
That was the end of the conversation. He never asked about the quality of the product and never asked how much money we were talking about! No matter what we said or did, the chinese could do it cheaper.

 

x-2 about 15 yrs ago i installed ACC carpet in a 68 fairlane and it dropped in like it was original equipment

 

Manufacture, then retail your "made in the USA"/correct fitting part in direct competition of the inferior/non fitting, but cheaper Chinese made part.
Unless the car is being quickly assembled and flipped, most true car guys will spend the extra $$$ for a quality/correct, domestic part.
Set up an ours/theirs table at the Auto swap meet with samples of yours and the chinese crap, so folks can see first hand how well yours is made!!!

 

That, unfortunately, is just what we have been getting, not just lately, but much over the past 40 years I've been using aftermarket parts. If'n you are willing to pay the price, you'll get what you pay for. Too bad the "junk yards" we knew are gone. ONLY WAY, IS the good old "MADE IN THE USA". Jay Y.

 

Gives me an idea for a sales logo:
"Ours costs more....
you get what you pay for."

F Chinese shit, buy American.

 

we're all prisioners of our addiction. building old cars, it's nice that anything is available.
if the parts actually fit and looked original it would be to simple.

my thing on RUBBER reproductions is no one grows rubber plants. everything is made from oil. if these new parts were exact (there not) they still wouldn't compress and seal as the originals did.

you youngsters never saw America when we were a manufacturing giant.

I really believe that more and more imports will be built by Americans. as Americans move to China, India, ect. to find jobs