cleanflametrap
Well-known member
- Joined
- Sep 3, 2009
- Location
- near baltimore
I find it extremely frustrating when companies cut corners to the point that the product is not even fit for use. I get that it's important to cut costs, but I'd gladly pay more to have a quality part. Same is true of most aftermarket headlights and tail lights, the quality is crap, there's nothing in between a (example numbers) $350 dealer part and a $40 aftermarket part that looks like crap. I'd gladly pay $150 for a really good aftermarket part that is a true match in quality for OEM.
But you'd be getting a bargain if that $350 Genuine part was anywhere near the quality it was when it was made in car-production quantities for a going car producer, because things like tail lights are a lot easier to get right and profitable when your production line is building pallet-loads of them, and the results are being carefully inspected and checked by one of your largest customers.
Back to topic at-hand... is it just my lengthened perception, or do vulcanized rubber parts have different properties in this century compared to last? Like alkaline batteries, did the formula change for the good of the earth, or something, not related to penny-pinching? I spent a Sunday studying this elastomer thing at Wayne State U many years ago, only to learn it is a deeper subject than squirting goo into a mold.