TRW tie rod ends

Post by **vtl** » 09 Dec 2015, 08:27

Installed 11 months and 5500 miles ago into wife's 2002 V70:

"Made in US"

The other side had the same cracked rubber. Also when I installed it, I had to cut tie rod (Lemforder), because TRW tie rod end didn't have enough thread cut in it.

Don't make mistake when you are shopping for tie rod ends.

Post by **oragex** » 09 Dec 2015, 09:51

Sad, most aftermarket 'name' brand parts for European cars appear to be of insufficient quality. Wonder what is happening with this market. Maybe they all source their components from China and final assembly locally?

Post by **vtl** » 09 Dec 2015, 11:39

oragex wrote:Wonder what is happening with this market. Maybe they all source their components from China and final assembly locally?

All my electronics lab equipment is labeled "Made in China", and it works quite well, despite low prices. Well, lower. Some equipment, like oscilloscope, is still quite expensive, just because of its nature. On the other hand, most of my recent purchases proudly (mis)labeled "Made in US" were utter crap, like these TRW rod ends or USA Industries rebuilt axles. So I'm a bit skeptic now.

I think what has happened is the US corp. managers don't really see how direct is the correlation between cost reduction and following quality reduction. Quality issue becomes apparent only after they've got their bonus for effective management.