Which Suspension Brands to Avoid?
Hambur Technic: Chinese junk.
Karlyn: Taiwan junk.
URO: sexy name but Chinese junk.
MTC (Mission Trading Co): Chinese junk.
… as found in this Volvo Forum Control Arm topic. For a more detailed and focused topic for what brands to avoid, see:
Suspension Brands to Avoid– Pete – »
I just wanted to share my most recent experience with these extremely low lifespan units. I bought a small pile of the Lemforder’s a while back. Incidentally, this was around the time Lemforder changed manufacturing of these from Germany to PR of China.
As stated by several smart people on here, be very discerning when evaluating products on FCP; the number of yellow stars by the reviews don’t always tell an accurate tale. Always check for country of manufacture, as well as scroll through the Q&A tab of any product you have interested in. If there are no questions asked, ask one. They typically reply within 24 hours in my experience.
This is the second set from that unfortunate pile that I’ve changed out due to will-be-failing-soon type sounds at just over 10K miles of light use. This set was installed at 128,900 miles, clicking/binding sounds initially detected around 135,000 & quite noticeable by 140k when I changed them.
Allegedly, Meyle HD top mounts are made in Germany. I can’t corroborate this since my boxes/parts depict no country of manufacture, but I am running Meyle HD top mounts in 2 non-XC P2’s at the moment. My (4) Meyle boxes had no indication of country of manufacture; typically there is a little white sticker on Meyle boxes stating where it is made. All the Meyle stuff I’ve installed over the years has one of three countries printed on the sticker – Germany, Turkey, PR of China.
If the Meyle HD mounts S the B prematurely, I’ll be going Febi/INA.
oragex »
Yep, the shocking cheap price was already a good indicator something is wrong.. at under $20 when a good aftermarket one was around $40-$50. As for the Made in Germany, to me that is not a standard in itself. I had Febi spring seats stamped and boxed Made in Germany, only to fail within 1 year with cracks on the rubber. Germans make both good and poor products, just as Chinese make both good and bad. The big question is, what is going on with the Lemforder management team. How possibly could they go this low, just for a part they don’t actually ‘need’ to have in their catalogue. That is a worrying sign the Lemforder management has changed team members and may start going downhill. I had similar experience with sealed box individual replacement Lemforder rear bushings for the front control arms for S60 and also for XC90. Garbage bushings that failed in less than 6 months. Hopefully their full control arms are still good but I wish people would give a long term update on these. Let’s hope Lemforder is not going to sink, because they are about the only decent brand for several parts, if they go downhill, we are going to struggle getting quality parts at affordable prices.
Last Updated on July 1, 2024
