John Horner wrote:

The quality of the Chinese / Taiwanese stuff is definitely improving.




Indeed the quality of a lot of the Chinese stuff is clearly working it's way
up. Probably part of this is because first tier manufacturers have been
putting huge investments into factories in China and are driving the quality
levels up. Yesterday I was looking at a very nice Dewalt 14" chop saw ...
sure enough, Made in China. Funny, the price is still $200 .

I still have some cheap Fuller brand Made in Japan combination wrenches I
bought for next to nothing back in the early 1970s. At the time I thought I
would need to soon replace them with some good 'merican ones ... and they
are still working perfectly well after 30 years of use and abuse.

The Taiwan stuff is now mostly of very good to excellent quality and China
is moving on up.

John




The problem that I see is inconsistency of product. Although you can
get Chinese chain and sprockets (example we use a lot of) that are as
good or better than some of the stuff made elsewhere (including the
USA), you never know if you are actually getting the good stuff or not.
SOME manufacturers in that neck of the world are variable in quality
but the problem I see most often is the distribution end. Like
Americans, the location you purchase from is chasing maximum
profitability so often substitute cheap rather than quality.

If you can get the product directly from the manufacturer, quality is
fairly consistent. However, there are LOTS of resellers posing as the
manufacturer of the goods. Big money as the middleman. After shipping
goods this way, not many of them either have leverage to correct
problems or willingness to give a rats ass.

Actually, it's getting to be a similar problem in the US. One
competitor of ours has a fixed policy of NOT taking care of problems.
They figure that most purchasing agents change jobs about every 2 years
and it's cheaper to start all over with the new guy who doesn't know
about the problems than take care of the current problem.

Koz