Vintique Products Chinese?
 

After wiping chrome flakes off from around my new moto-meter, and reading "Manufactured by Vintique Inc." And proudly made in the USA, i wonder if their parts are made in China? Like the Vintique hood latches i have, still in the pkg because they're going back to Mike's. Sideways, in small print it says made in Taiwan. I dont think we have a choice anymore whether to buy American made or Chi-Com products.

Re: Vintique Products Chinese?
 

Yep, that's why it's always good to have mechanic and machinist skills, so you can restore original parts. They fit and look right!

Re: Vintique Products Chinese?
 

I agree with Tom. However it is virtually impossible to find restorable original parts. Then you are at the mercy of the manufacturer, which is more and more made in China. Rusty Nelson

Re: Vintique Products Chinese?
 

Most Vintique junk is just that- Junk.

I remember a guy who bought a set of Vintique door handles and the first time he went to turn the handle the square shank broke in half.

Seems like most people want shiny chrome over fit & function. It's more satisfying to rebuild an original door handle or hood latch etc.... the best part is you can usually find these in the $1 bin at the Swap Meets because it doesn't have bright chrome on it.

Re: Vintique Products Chinese?
 

I replaced a starter switch with one I got from a very reliable supplier, but the switch was a "Vintique" switch and it was defective. The "innards" were ok, but the housing
and the piece that connects to the starter rod were a bad fit. My choices were to either drill out the hole so the rod would slide up and down smoothly or to use the old housing, which is what I did. The inside parts were fine, and since that's what I needed-----problem solved. I did, however, let the supplier know.

Jack

Re: Vintique Products Chinese?
 

Re: Vintique Products Chinese?
 

This one's off the shelf at Zeller's dept store in Canada....Includes drill bit & screws!
Sorry, I couldn't help bringing it up again :p

Re: Vintique Products Chinese?
 

it is not the fault of the Chinese. They are perfectly capable of making quality products. They do it all the time for other industries, such as Boeing. The fault lies with the people in the USA that order Model A parts from the Chinese and specify cheap over quality.

Tom Endy

Re: Vintique Products Chinese?
 

Guys, some of your home-grown parts aren't so hot either. I've 'imported' loads of USA-made items to the UK for my Model As that have gone straight in the bin.

Re: Vintique Products Chinese?
 

Tom you just gave me a good reason to avoid flying.
I'll lay good odds that Boeing leaves THAT one out of their advertising. :eek:
Sorry but that's how I feel at least until some of this "quality" Chinese stuff I hear about starts coming my way... cuz I'm just not seeing it.
The latest item of "most frequent repair" at my glass shop are window regulators on 99-2006 GM trucks, Yukon & Escalade. The tiny bicycle cable isn't capable of lifting the heavy door glass past X amount of cycles, nor to withstand freezing...so the unit breaks, & glass STOPS...requiring a new assembly since the frayed cable takes out the hub.
OK now there's a point to this story...

I replaced 5 of these GM regulators last year and recently learned a lesson.
You see I normally buy an aftermarket regulator with new motor complete, at my jobber store.
The brand is "Doorman"
They work OK. They look exact (yes they will fail too)
In a recent case my customer elected to spend the extra $60xx (I believe it was) on the OEM part from General Motors..."just for good measure" he said ;)

I installed the new OEM regulator into the door.
It wouldn't go up...seizing solid halfway.
I took everything back apart, lots of adjusting, lubing and had it in & out several times only to find the main track was the trouble. Somehow the rail was wider at the center of travel...so the guide would seize halfway.

It was easy enough to grind away the metal and make it work... lucky for me since by now the dealer was closed and it took over 2 hrs past dinner to finish the job.
And the best part? Plainly printed on the GM label.....Made In China.

I emailed pictures to the dealer, and they couldn't give a rat's ass ...they said "no one else has ever complained"
I'm past getting mad....nowdays I'm more sad.

I guess you could be correct after all Tom...why should GM set a higher standard and avail themselves of these "higher quality" parts you speak of? They're on their feet and ready to do it (to us) again....with the bargain hunters lined up the sidewalks.

Thanks again for the Boeing tip
...more and more I'm beginning to see original Model A's as the transportation of choice! :):)
Cheers.

Re: Vintique Products Chinese?
 

I do a lot of my own repair on everything I can, appliances, cars, house mechanical, etc. because it's relaxing. What I find shocking is the amount of parts that are of Chinese content, especially in a reputable USA brand name product. Like posted before, most of the components are very well made and designed, after all I'm usually into something after years of service.

I find the belly aching here amusing about not buying Chinese when the posters are typing on a Chinese keyboard hooked to a Chinese 'puter cabled to a Chinese router tied to the internet which, as I have read recently, monitored by the Chinese.

Like I tell my wife about our Chrysler mini-van, the only USA part in it is when I leave something special in the seat cushion.

GW

Re: Vintique Products Chinese?
 

Let me ask something this way without making this political or pointing a finger specifically. I realize the pendulum of the clock always swings both directions but do you think we will see the day when quality will return to commodities we purchase because people as a whole demand it?

I guess why I am confused in knowing what to think for when I/you look at the vehicles setting at a Harbor Freight store, often times I/you will see expensive Trucks, SUVs, etc. where the owner is inside buying cheapo tools. If they saw the value in buying a Cadillac Escalade, a King Ranch 4x4 crew cab, or a Lincoln Navigator, what possesses them to buy cheap commodities in other areas? Maybe it is because if they buy a $29 drill and purchase the 2-year additional warranty for $15, they figure they will replace it in 2½ years and get another new one vs spending $99 on a DeWalt that shares the same basic warranty? Has the "Wal*Mart Quality" mindset been instilled where there is no turning back for the majority of consumers?

.

Re: Vintique Products Chinese?
 

I guess I look at it differently.....if I am getting a tool/device that I will use only occasionaly or in a non safety issue environment; then Harbor Freight made in China stuff is ok with me.

However; if I am getting a tool/device that I intend using a lot, has a safety issue, or a serious tool use.....then I opt for a brand name that is made in the USA>

The problem is.....due to higher labor and insurance costs here m=any brand name manufacturers do not make their stuff here any more.

I just installed a GE front loader washer this past year that came intact from China and was never out of the box until it got to my home. The last person to touch it before me was the assembler in China.

Having said that; the washer has worked flawlessly and after it gets to be 7 years old it has lived out it's life cycle. I hope.

The pendelum will swing the other way...but not for years to come.

I check each part I get for the A and if it is poor quality, doesnt fit without "tuning it up"....etc.....I return it to the supplier and tell them that they are selling junk.

Snyders and Brattons and Berts (for example) are very sensitive to the quality of the stuff they sell....some others are not...

As for Vintique parts...some are good but some that I have encountered are not.

It is my guess that the part is reverse engineered by people who have never fitted it to a Model A and so have no clue what the tolerances are.

It behooves a supplier that sources a part in China (or anywhere else including the USA) to simply test fit the sample device on their own Model A (and they should have one) and make sure it fits and works correctly BEFORE they place the total order to their Chinese or USA supplier AND THEN to make random checks for the quality, fit, and finish.... when the shipments start coming in from China or whoever the supplier is INCLUDING USA suppliers.

When I was in paper machine manufacturing we did that with ALL suppliers of parts and we had zero problems with repacement parts from our customers or our own assembly people.

I was really hard on my assemblers that they not "custom fit" a part (Purchase/alter) unless the drawing specifically said to.





IMHO

Dennis L Oberer
Green Bay WI

Re: Vintique Products Chinese?
 

Brent,

There is no value in buying a Cadillac, believe me, Just examine their window raising mechanism. Just replaced two of them and was truly amazed at the cheap plastic junk involved. As stated earlier in this thread, the A is the best car I own:).

Re: Vintique Products Chinese?
 

Just a few random and incomplete comments because it would take way too long of a post to tie them all together with background.

One clarification that may not mean much to some, but Taiwan isn't where the Chi-Coms operate..............though they'd like to.

Some of you may be old enough to remember much the same kind of bashing of Japanese lack of quality in the mid '50s. But they learned didn't they? Perhaps we should remember to not underestimate a competitor, better still, don't cede them the advantage by making stupid choices (we desire to avoid politics here so I'll stop at that).

That being said I've shared Mr. Endy's view in that context. However, I learned something at this year's SEMA show. A friend who has some component manufacturing done in China learned a hard lesson. He demands quality. It took him some considerable investigation to find an operation over there that was willing/able to give him the quality level of product he demanded and was willing to pay for. They went throught the prototype phase and then in to first run production with satisfactory results. By the second or third (I've forgotten that detail) run though the quality had "slipped". He called them on it, they made it right.........you guessed it......for another run or two and then let it slip again. He ended up hiring a guy here, moving him over there, and had him as a quality control monitor. I don[t know if that's a cultural thing, or just that individual company is run by dishonest people, either way it says something. Lest some think that's another reason to blame it on all of Chinese manufacturing I'd remind you of the comment by our friend from Britain above.

My friend above has a comparatively small manufacturing business based in Southern California (for those of you atuned to business operation you've probably been aware of how hostile that state is to business operation). He did not come to the decision to move some of his component manufacturing offshore easily. It's popular in our national narative to declare him and others who make that kind of decision as "greedy corporations". Again, trying to avoid political slanting, to embrace that line is to buy into a distraction from the real root causes. Again, if you run a business you're aware that an employee costs you much more than most people think. A worker who's stated salary is, oh say $40k per year, costs much more at the bottom line.........in some states it could easily hit $70k in total, real cost. Add to that the costs of a plethora of regulations (here in Wa. St. when I had my shop we had 48 sets of regulations administered by 28 agencies hanging over our head.....and since we were under 50 employees there were many more we were exempt from). If a prudent business person who wants to survive does accurate cost accounting he has to grind all that into his final pricing. If you think about the expense of hiring a guy, moving him and his family to China, paying extra for his dislocation/housing, and keeping him there, there had to be a BIG additional cost to operate here. If he had no competitors he could just add that higher cost to his final product, but that's not reality.

As for those that recognize that consumer demand should dictate quality, and to answer the question expressed with the HF example above, a portion of the answer lies in consumer ignorance. People will often buy whatever is available to "get the job done" because they don't know how to tell the difference between something that is "good" vs something that is "adequate" (and we won't even get into who establishes the definition other than to say ultimately it's the consumer). Consumers often aren't willing to invest the time it takes to educate themselves on what "quality" really means. They're unwilling to do the comparative exercise to differentiate one from another when they might know some of the measuring criteria. (Those of you who are anal enough to do that might not fully understand how outnumbered you are). The internet is a tool that could help in that matter, but it's still up to the consumer to make use of it and demand the info be meaningful as well as accurate. I'll give a short example of what I mean. I was in the collision repair business. When a finished car is sitting on the delivery ramp ready to go, it's hard for most consumers to see the difference between a properly repaired car and one that was hacked out. To us as car nuts that may seem odd, but we're actually the (significant) minority. Something around 80% of vehicle owners (if you're familiar with Pareto's Principal of 80/20 distribution this makes sense) see their daily driver as just another appliance in their life. They have little to no emotional attachment in it (other than the notion of possession..........hey, that's mine! Stop stealing it!). All they care about is that the inconvienience caused by the accident be over and that they get back to their routine of point A to point B. They make the value judgement that it's not worth the effort to learn the differences between good and bad since they don't have to face that situation very often. By and large that industry does the logical thing................it targets the fat part of the market, which would explain why it has a somewhat spotty reputation.

Like I said, it's really much more complex, but too difficult to cover in detail. But we should be aware that the simple headline responses we often hear of "greedy corporations/businessmen", evil Chineses (or whomever), and so on are off the mark as far as pointing to a cause/solution.

Re: Vintique Products Chinese?
 

WELL SAID!!

"The Bitterness of Poor Quality Remains Long After the Sweetness of Low
Price is Forgotten"

Re: Vintique Products Chinese?
 

Uncle Bob you put that SO well.
I also spent a few years in auto body and your observations in that department especially are spot on!

Re: Vintique Products Chinese?
 

I Recently wanted to replace a swingaway can opener I have had since around 2003. To my surprise the one I bought without looking is made in China and has 10X the slop in it. It also works far worse then the US made one I bought in 03.

I am not impressed AT ALL. I can't buy quality made things even when I try. The can opener was something like $8. I'd be happy to pay $12, $15 even $20 for a quality made one that will
work nice for years rather then one that works BAD from day one.

This applies to EVERYTHING I buy not just can openers obviously.
:mad:

Re: Vintique Products Chinese?
 

Well, you are not going to find it at Walmart or Target.They still exist, but you need to try a specialty place like the Vermont Country Store or a high end tool store. As previously stated, it is not so much where a product is made but the standards accepted by the consumer. If you want to be a specialty consumer (quality parts) then you need to shop at specialty stores. Sad, but true.

Re: Vintique Products Chinese?
 

Funny you should mention that. I have 2 Swing-A-Way can openers, and keep one in my Model A. A year ago I though one was worn out, and I couldn't find another of the same quality. I removed the nut from the driven gear/cutting wheel and placed a thin flat washer behind the cutter. It works great again and cost me nothing but a few minutes.

BTW, an excellent can opener that never seems to wear out is the military P-38 and you can keep it on your keychain.