New parts NEVER fit!

[TerryG]

My new front light clusters arrived yesterday for the mog. This afternoon after a bit of fiddling (and some swearing) i had to "slot" one of the fitting holes on each to make them line up. Only 10 minutes work but it shouldn't be needed. I also had to bend all the tangs to make the lenses hold tightly enough so they didn't rattle AND glue the amber part of the lense to the clear part as they both fell straight out. £17 each so not mega money but i'd rather pay £20 and have them made the right size or better still £30 and have them made out of metal rather than cheese and lenses from glass not sweet wrappers.
On the plus side my new rear lenses fitted perfectly, they feel cheap but as they were "genuine" lucas parts at least there was no mucking about.

I appreciate "cheap" parts as much as the next person but i would like the option to spend a bit more and have a higher quality item.

[rich.]

i know what you mean! years ago i bought genuine bl wings for my mg, ater fitting the wing & 2 evenings of swearing i took them back off to find that some of the captive bolts on the top were not lined up properly with the hole in the wing, 5 minutes with a drill sorted the problem..

[tractorman]

It isn't just older cars - I replaced a headlamp on the Golf a few years ago (the car was about five at the time) and the beam pattern is different. OK, it wasn't a genuine VW lamp, but it is a warning about "pattern" parts!

Older cars have more of a problem due to poorer tolerances during manufacture - and cock-ups in design. I saw a programme some years ago where one of the assembly workers said that early Minors had to have matchsticks put in the windscreen rubber as the glass was too small after a design change to the car just before it was introduced. I think that was when the car was widened and had the "strip" down the middle of the bonnet - and they had to cut the bumpers in half and stick a bit of painted metal in the middle to make them fit!

Part of the problem though is that many parts are now made in Turkey, India and other developing countries. Tractor parts were notoriously low quality - but are improving slowly. Ten or fifteen years ago, the range, quality and price were all bad - I paid £100 or more for a pair of wings for my Fergy; they were two inches too shallow and barely cleared the tyres. Better ones can be bought for less now - along with a much wider range of parts for most makes. A lot of the improvement has been because buyers wouldn't accept the low quality stuff and the actual "hobby" has grown a lot over that time (from badly brush painted rusty hulks to 2-Pak mega-buck restorations)!

Perhaps car parts would also improve if more of us sent them back if they weren't up to standard.

[suffolkpete]

I bought a "new" fuel pump for my Matra a couple of years ago. That model has a small return connection back to the fuel tank. Obviously the return must be on the pressure side of the pump. I fitted my shiny new pump to my newly rebuilt engine and attempted to fire it up for the first time. Nothing! After doing the usual checks I found there was no fuel. The reason - the return was on the suction side of the pump and was simply drawing air. The design could never work. After putting the original pump back it started first time. The odd hole in not quite the right place is nothing compared to that sort of cosmic cock-up.

[mr rusty]

It's carpets that bug me- the cheap sets available for small chassis Triumphs don't get anywhere near fitting. I don't mind cheapo quality, after all, in a convertible they're going to get soaked sooner or later and more than once so should be considered as semi-disposable, but that's no excuse for them not fitting! Surely it can't be that difficult for the people who make these ghastly things to borrow a car and take some basic measurements and get a basic cutting pattern made

The moulded sets are better, but too pricey for a car that's going to occasionally fill with water, but fit is nothing to do with material quality, it's a simple basic starting point.

[Martin Evans]

That's assuming that all cars of a model are the same. I tried some new carpets for the Midget back in the mid 80's. After two sets, that didn't fit, I had a refund or something else (I can't remember exactly). That was in the days of the oblidging MG Sprite & Midget, B,C & V8 Centre (What a mouthful) or Sprite & Midget for short. As it turned out, I subsequently fitted the overdrive box and so standard carpets would not fit. Both my father and I have always tended to do our own carpets in conjunction with
http://www.suffolkandturley.co.uk/. Both partners were Jaguar apprentices, who set up in partnership (Though Mick Turley has since gone his own way - http://www.mctjag.co.uk/).

It's over 20 years since I was buying lots of parts, though from time to time I buy bits and pieces for smaller jobs. There has always been rubbish about but I think there's more of it now. I know I had trouble with a new water pump for the Morris. At one time you could get OE spec but Balco and QH stuff seemed to be fine (Better than the waterpumps I had). My late grandfather, a fitter for A.E.C. before and during the war, was always an exponent of factory parts and was always warey of aftermarket stuff (But he wasn't into modifying like my father and I......my father had one of the first Minis, with some Downton kit on it and that stuff was superb.....it was just that the gearbox couldn't take it). Certainly when I fitted the Dellortos to the Midget, I had to machine the manifolds before they would fit and modify the linkage (This is all well and good if you have your own machine shop or access to one), as the carbs were set too close together. Similarly the Offenhasuer manifold on the V 8 had to be machined before it would fit. We ended up making the airbox, as nobody could say that the standard units would clear the bonnet. Working with limited room and not wanting to alter the bonnet, we managed it and the result costs 1bhp over no air cleaner at all, so not a bad result.

I suppose when you have consumers, who are looking for cheap stuff and traders looking to make higher margins (Perhaps at the moment just make ends meet), something has to give. I am certainly aware of more gripes about duff parts these days. Maybe the Internet just makes you more aware but I have also seen bits in magazines.

In my VW Golf Mk 2 days, I must say VW stuff always fitted well.

[Mikey77]

I've bought some decent quality stuff for my Jaguar in recent times from SNG Barratt. I did, however, notice that Cibie headlights now seem to be made by Valeo in Belgium.
The secret seems to be, buy genuine or new old stock if you can, whatever make you are buying it for. 20 years ago a lot of pattern stuff for Jaguars was rubbish and maybe the situation hasn't changed much.

[mr rusty]

I suppose when you have consumers, who are looking for cheap stuff and traders looking to make higher margins (Perhaps at the moment just make ends meet), something has to give.

...but in the case of carpets it costs no more to make a set that fit than it does to make a set that don't fit.

Herald/Vitesse footwells are all the same shape and were the same shape from start to finish of production. All it takes is an accurate initial cutting pattern, surely the cost savings are to be made in the material quality, not the actual shape! I just don't understand why the companies that make these things can't make them the right shape. Even if they were making them from top notch axminster or wilton or whatever they'd still be the wrong shape

[Martin Evans]

I expect some of it comes down to tolerances but I suspect a lot of it comes down to speed. I don’t suppose the cutting of carpets is automated; they are probably cut to a template, by people on piecework, where near enough is good enough. It would be interesting to put a pile of supposedly identical carpets together and see how they all compare.

[mrtotty]

Regarding carpets, the carpet fit in my six-month-old Clio isn't that good either. It's not just classic cars.