Autolite Spark Plugs - CHINA

Everything will be made in China before you know it

 

like the mexico made champions are any better

 

I went to Shanghai, China twice this year. That place is gray. These large corps are making a killing off the people and the country. There leaders sure don't give a shit cause it's all about money

 

Even IF they were being made in America by Americans they would still suck,,becuase the compaines are making product for as cheap as possible. That includes materials ,labour etc..

You want quality parts ?? Start looking for pre 1969 NOS stuff.

 

I think his computer was made in China.

 

I go to China every year and sell them equipment. Doing my small bit to reduce trade deficit. Am in electrical wire machinery business and the wire they make there and send back to this country is crap. Poor quality and poor insulation. If the spark plugs are made with the same attention to quality, then they will be crap too. Sad part is UL inspectors are in China to look for problems, but they either do not care or are being paid off.

 

I venture to say this piece of work came outta china actually or is being sent out in a massive e-mail to others who may work for one of the parent or sister companies. This whole response feels like a sugar coated FU to me. I do not think MR. Troller will be back to follow up with us on here kinda like how I do not think domestic production of anything farmed out to overseas years ago will return to the US. Jay Buckley huh, hm sounds kinda fishy.-Weeks

 

Can you imagine being sent to a foreign country (communist to boot) to tell them what their making is crap, probably not good for job or life security. Until we quit buying their crap nothing is going to change, on most products they are payed in full before it gets loaded on the boat leaving no recourse on the distributor or end buyer.

The Chinese are killing us (junk tires), making us stupid (lead), and our government turns their head, and we keep buying the shit.WTF!!!

 

You've hit the nail on the head. Allied Signal now Honeywell, is the parent company that owns/manufactures Fram, Autolite, Prestone, Bendix as well as Garret turbo chargers. I work in the Aerospace side of the business and have watched just about every manufacturing facility that can be moved to "Emerging Markets" get moved. But it comes down to overhead. The labor, plants, supplies, utilities...all of it kills the companies ability to be competitive and remain competitive against other companies that originate or have already moved outside the US. A few people saying that they would pay more for US made stuff isn't enough to keep the company going and keep the rest of us that work for the company employed. In today's environment I'll buy whatever I can afford, regardless of where its made.

As a part time gig a work at a NAPA store and have for 10+ years. Interfacing with shops, manufacture reps, etc. I switched my buying habits a long time ago and now only buy NGK or AC plugs and WIX filters. My 2 cents, not that its worth it.

 

That happened about 5 years ago. The plugs (at that time) still said AC Delco, but the platinum plugs were made by NGK for delco.

 

I agree 100% with the "Don't Buy Foreign Crap" way of thinking.

Unfortunately it is virtually impossible to buy American exclusively. Everything we consume comes from foreign countries, at least partially. This includes the obvious stuff like electronics, auto parts, tools, clothes, furnature, books, medicine, medical supplies and equipment (remember that the next time you need a MRI, x-ray, or or even a blood screen for high cholestoral), home construction supplies, etc, etc. It also includes much of the food we eat. I know of at least one Hot Rod shop that has deuce firewalls stamped in taiwan for sale through his business. He doesn't hide the fact, it's just they way business is.

Fallon is small town that has been taken over by Wallmart. The only option is to drive to Reno or Carson and buy from their stores (that are importing pretty much the same shit Wallmart imports).
There are someting like 30,000 acres of farm land in Churchill county yet no food is produced here and marketed for local consumption. Some milk is sold locally but that's it. A lot of the food we eat right here in farmland comes from Mexico, Chile, Argentina, Japan, and China. How can it get worse than that, when local growers don't care enough to feed their own families and community when they have everything needed to do so (and make a living doing it)???

I spend a fair amount of time on my foreign made computer trying to research where things come from before I shop and I'm constantly amazed at how little there is left that is made in America.

It's never too late to turn things around, but this one is gonna be as tough as any task ever taken on by Americans.

Become knowledgeable. Buy American when your able to find it.

The ONLY way to take back America is to become vocal and let Washington know who they really work for.

Rich

 

"Second that...I'd pay double for anything made on THIS continent...Mexico, USA or Canada."


Unfortunately there are not many people like you left. I go WAY out of my way to buy N.American or European stuff, but most people have the "Walmart" mentality today.

What most N. Americans really want is excellent quality products at Chinese prices while making fantastic money with excellent benefits. It doesn't compute.

I manufacture a few parts locally and have small business people in my family. I can assure you if you put a quality, locally made part on a table next to a cheap Chinese part that's 30-40% cheaper, 8-9 people will pick up the cheaper one. It's like we are programed to buy the cheap one.

Few people care about quality or how long the part will last. We used to have a generation of fixers and menders, so quality mattered. My friend works for a company that imports bicycles, mostly from Asia. You would be very surprized, or at least I was, how FEW spare parts they order. If anything more than the tires or brake pads wear out, people put the bike to the curb.

Now on topic. I've been in a parts store MANY times to overhear people bitching about the price of plugs which last about 3-5x longer than the old ones used to. You don't think that gets back to NGK or Autolite. The solution; a $2.99 plug from China. How many people really research which plugs are best for their car? Few I would imagine. How many mechanics clean, inspect and gap plugs and put them back in the engine these days? They buy based on the price and some, because of brand loyality. I personally buy Bosch. Does that make them better? No. Within reason do I care what the price is? No. They've performed for me in the past so I go to the counter and buy another set since most of daily drivers were European cars. I was a little surprized when the guy handed me a set of Bosch plugs for my 401 Buick last year though.

 

So, someone asked before, but I don't think it got a definite answer. Is there any brand plug that is exclusively manufactured in the US?

 

HAHA. The one of the Engineers at Edelbrock used the do the same shit when I worked there. He would search the net and join forums just to push the product. He would also extinguish any posts that talked bad about the product true or not. I think alot of companies do it. It's free market feedback.

 

"Someone else should accept less, so I can have more."

Fucking Idiots begrudge anyone else that wants a decent standard of living.

 

Where did 'Ol sparky boy go?

 

"Someone else should accept less, so I can have more."

"Fucking Idiots begrudge anyone else that wants a decent standard of living."

Actually I'm advocating the opposite! My dad's a butcher who owned his own shop. When I was growing up, we had good paying manufacturing jobs, we paid licensed electricians, plumbers, and mechanics etc. fair wages so they could raise a family. They paid my dads' prices so he could provide for us and he in turn used their services at a fair price.

Fast forward to 2009. There are almost no butcher shops since everyone buys their cheap meat at Costco, packaged by assembly line workers earning minimum wage. We have lost almost all of our manufacturing since we prefer to buy cheap goods from Walmart made overseas. People use illegals or untrained help to build their house. It's a race for the bottom since everyones purchasing power is declining. How did we get here - GREED!

What scares the crap out of me is that our governments are going around the world signing free trade agreements with all of these nations. The law of competitive advantage means that if you want to compete with someone making 1/20th of what you make, then you have to be 20x more efficient than they are. We're not because the playing field is not level. (higher taxes, cost of living, environmental levies, etc.)

So, all I'm saying is if you want to earn a decent living, start buying stuff at fair prices made close to home. I pay 200-300% more in some cases to buy stuff made here when possible. I turn over every box to see where it's made before I buy it. My point was, people don't do that. They buy the cheap offshore parts and hope people will continue to buy the higher priced parts their company makes. It doesn't work. Somone working for $8 an hour can't afford your $250 "Made in USA" alternator, no matter how good it is, let alone a car.

Case in point. My buddy who made $45-50K as a pressman in a print shop for 20 years running 3 color presses, providing for his wife and 4 kids lost his job 4 years ago because most books and stationary are now printed in China. He now works for $10 an hour as a security guard because there are very very few printing jobs and no one wants to hire a 64 year old guy. Do you think he can afford your $1200 master rebuild kit for his car?

 

What burns just as badly as cheap chinese shit is buying a Made in USA piece that is even lower quality, in an attempt to compete with them. IMO we need to totally quit trying to compete on price and make stuff that is 100% highest quality. The German carmakers are doing it and mostly excelling (BMW, Porsche). When they try to compete on cost (VW) they do as poorly as us.

There is just no one who really wants to pay a penny more for anything from a shovel to spark plugs. It's a false economy to buy some piece of shit foreign crap that ends up in the landfill, compared to paying 20% more for a quality piece that lasts 20 yrs. and provides higher paying jobs.

"What most N. Americans really want is excellent quality products
at Chinese prices while making fantastic money with excellent benefits."

Exactly....

 

I think someone said it here. What you are saying is not totally accurate. Please do not misconstrue. I DO NOT support the manufactoring of anything in China but, they are making things on US company's manufactoring specs. Like all businesses, the Chinese will always look for ways to cheapen their cost while pretending to keep to the letter of the spec.

So this means some beancounter at Autolight or any other turn coat business is telling them what they want and how much they are willing to pay.

Remember: It takes three in this game:

1) Business will to outsource their manfacturing to overseas vendor

2) Overseas vendor trying to lessen their cost of manufactoring against the clients requested spec.

3) US end-user willing to buy said parts and keep the cycle going.

If #3 drops out of the picture, the cycle either dies or they go sell their goods to some other country

 

In a race to the bottom , nobody wins.
It's gonna take a loooong dang time for the standard of living to come up in China enough for this nonsense to end. In India the government's greed added an additonal 40% tax to the support contracts and drove a bunch of that stuff back stateside ;also the demand for script monkeys raised the average wage ,further reducing the advantage. While it's true that a rising tide lifts all the boats in the harbor , the Chinese make it a BIG bay to fill!
My2c
Jorge

 

Reading this thread has actually been somewhat encouraging to me; on just about all the other message boards of which I am a member, a thread like this would get way fewer pro-US posts.

Actually, I'm so encouraged that I might start a thread about finding US-made stuff.


I'd like to take a shot at breaking down and translating Sparky's post:

I'm kinda high up in Autolite, and I don't want people searching the 'net to find any negative opinions about Autolite spark plugs, no matter how factually based they may be.

We're not a US company anymore, and we'll make stuff anywhere it's cost-effective to do so.

You don't matter because we sell barely any plugs to you guys anyway. You should be happy we still make them at all!

The plugs you guys don't care about are still made here and in Mexico. The Chinese still suck at making plugs with precious metals in them, but when they improve, we'll have ALL our plugs made there.

If I repeat a lie enough times, people will start thinking it's the truth. Oh, and we're never, ever, ever, ever bringing production back here.


Does that sound about right?

 

95% of FRAM filters are made in stratford, ontario, clearfield, utah or greenville, ohio.
low running part numbers are sourced. They are not cheap junk, they have 5 different filters at five different price points and even the lowest priced one has 96% efficiency

 

Do a search cowboy..on this forum..that aint what your consumers or these HAMBers have found..real world statistics are what this group is all about..not something written in a cheap brochure.

 

No, it is not right

 

Not true, a real live technical advisor here, paid by Honeywell to answer your ignition and spark plug questions.

 

The man did not say he had a problem, he merely stated the set of 386 plug he bought came from China and I acknowledged that. Any of the other posts that claimthey had an issue, I have one simple question- Did you attempt to contact Autolite regarding your problem? We have an 800 number on our website. As I stated in a previous posting, we stand behind our products 100%. If they were defective, we would replace them and reimburse the labor to install. We make millions of spark plugs, should a defective part find its way into a vehicle and a quality claim was made, you would have found that Autolite would certainly stand behind the product.

 

Dave,
I am at your service, you can send me any question at Jay.Buckley@Honeywell.com. You will get honest, professional advice from a ASE Master Tech.

 

yes he did say he had a problem..his problem was that they were not made in this country..and lately thats been a huge problem in this country.

Oldspwr said.. "I flipped the box over and noticed they were MADE IN CHINA. Man was I aggravated!!!"

doesnt that sound like hes not happy about that,.. to you?

 

Go check these threads out and report back

http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=330462&highlight=fram

http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=295635&highlight=fram

http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=256628&highlight=fram

those should get you started..
do a search..type in Fram..and there should be enough posts to keep you buisy for a while..some of the posts dont start out with Fram in the title..but if you take the time to read some of them..that brand will pop up..

To me..if its crap its crap,,period..and if its US made crap,,shame on us..but if its made somewhere else and pushed on us telling us its all good , dont worry theres nothing wrong with it.or..well "this country" is the only place we make that part for your application..well, thats where i draw the line.

 

You're absolutely correct - I didn't spend any time at all trying to find out who you are, because I already knew all I needed to know: you're a guy who promotes parts that are made in China.

Seriously? I find that very hard to believe. Oldspwr, how much were they last year when they were still made in the USA?

Ah, so I was exactly right when I said Autolite is no longer a US company!

Beats me, since you obviously aren't too concerned that we don't like it that some of your plugs are made in China.

"Good business" doesn't much matter to me; buying stuff that's made in the USA does, and I'm willing to drive farther and pay more to get it. As a matter of fact, today I drove at least twice as far in order to buy a couple 1/8" compression fitting unions that were made in the USA. I don't know what the price difference was because I didn't even ask the guy on the phone how much the foreign ones were.

You said "We are committed to selling the very best spark plugs in the market..." To me, part of being "the very best" is being made in the USA. How can you be committed to selling the very best spark plugs on the market and make them in China? According to my worldview, that is inconsistent and therefore pretty much constitutes a lie. Again, I don't care who you are; if you like and promote things made in China, I will disagree with you until the end of the world.