I must be in the minority. You go to Rock auto and I never buy the cheap part. At least buy the middle of the road one.

I think I tuned out Drunkle Tony the first video I stumbled across. He sums up something I hate, which is old timers feeling entitled to being experts just because they are old timers. Times change, companies change, technology changes, etc, you've gotta keep up, can't just expect the same answers from 30 years ago to still be correct and relevant.

I've not had any major problems with parts that I can think of, none worth complaining about anyway. Anything I buy, I research first. I'll look up parts on Rockauto for example and cross reference the part numbers on Summit, Jegs, Amazon etc to check out reviews and comments. I learned a long time ago not to make purchase on name brand alone. Maybe the Moogs and Edelbrocks all relied too much on their name while they were outsourcing production of their parts overseas while keeping their name brand pricing. I've had good results with parts from companies I'd never heard of before but had good review ratings and positive comments.

So I don't think everything is defective, so much as some people's purchasing philosophy is defective.

Researching parts is a good idea but only works up to a point. When you have a business and need multiple parts every single day, how much time would it take to research every single one? That means multiple brands of multiple parts. Probably work for personal use but not really practical in business.

If I can buy it from Mopar or a OE manufacturer I do and it serves me well. It is the parts I can`t get from OE any longer that I seem to run into issues with. Napa has gone to crap. They seem no better than Autozone or Advance or the others. I was surprised when I bought some 5/16 gas line from Autozone recently it was made in the US.

Fair point, might consider doing the same with overall brands instead of individual parts. When I went through my suspension couple of years ago, all the factory type parts I used brand Mevotech if I recall, instead of MOOG, based on cost and overall ratings of the various parts I needed. All came packaged and finished nicely, no problems with fit and no quality issues have arisen so far.

What I am saying is "everything is defective" is a cop out. I mean if one truly believed that they would either give up on repairing cars and buy a horse and tell your customers to do the same, or try developing their own parts line to make a fortune with parts that aren't defective out of the box.

As a guy who works on his own cars himself--by choice--we ARE in the minority.

Most people don't have the knowledge, skill, time, or interest to do it themselves. These people take it to a shop and just want it fixed as cheaply as possible.
The rest of the people who DO work on their cars themselves often do it because they can't afford to take it to a shop--they have no choice but to do their own work. These people obviously will pinch pennies as well.

Don't know much about Tony as I haven't had a lot of time to do much of anything but work and come here to relax a bit (that will be changing soon )
I agree with a lot of what you said , but will make the following comments:
Do keep in mind, along with age comes wisdom
Correct, But quality shouldn't have, but in many cases has
I do the same, but be aware there are companies that "for a fee" will "BLANKET" post reviews for a product
I'll agree again and say it really P's me off that they do so, especially on pocketing the difference

I used to work for an aftermarket brake company. I can attest that customers primarily chose based on price. My company advertised highlighting our quality and mostly made in USA parts. Our business was starting to suffer from the lower priced offshore competition anyway.
Around 2005 they started throwing in the towel, shifted manufacturing out of the country, mostly Asia, and mothballed our plants here.
I don’t have a high opinion of any aftermarket brake parts now. I wish I’d stocked up on more parts when I worked there to have a good stash of NORS parts!
I went to a trailer store last week to buy tires. The guy there told me everything except Good Year is Chinese now.
I needed a mounted tire and wheel, so bought it there. Then installed it and took the wheel and old tire I removed to Discount tire and had a GoodYear tire installed.
It was about 30% more than the Chinese brands. I need to go out and install it, and then get another new tire. I guess I’ll get another GoodYear, but it’s hard justifying spending 40-50 bucks extra.
I’d like to think the GoodYear is higher quality, but the guy at the trailer place thought them all similar quality.

I hate to say this but I think GoodYear is Chinese also. One of my sons who works in the tire shop at a large coal mine tells me there are no, no, quality trailer tires available from anyone. Period. I've run LT tires on my trailer for decades and it looks like I'll continue doing that.

I was told that mastercraft LT tires make good trailer tires, for a truck they suck though.

I absolutely can't stand this! I have boomers offer unsolicited advice all the time that absolutely have no clue about newer tech. Trying to "pass down their knowledge" that they don't realize has long been surpassed. The "flipping the pistons around to gain horsepower" B.S. is infuriating!

I had one guy telling me how much I needed another carb for the car to run good. I went out and busted off a low 10 and he decided it was best to shut up.

The Goodyear Endurance is made in usa (at least it was as of 12 months ago when i was shopping for them). I think thats the only one.

Just go to Tire Rack and find the tire you're interested in (if they carry it) then click on "Specs" and it will tell you the country of origin at the far-right column.


https://www.tirerack.com/tires/Spec.jsp?tireMake=Goodyear&tireModel=Endurance&isSEO=true

Bottom line as stated by many: more people "buy Price" and there is some truth to "you get what you pay for" for the most part. A friend once said to me a long time ago when there was a question on why something we were talking about was more expensive than the same thing we were comparing. He said, "you know bologna is a lot cheaper than prime rib and why is that they are both meat???" If you want to see one example of some of the "hidden reasons" why some vehicles cost more than others the next time you are at a new car show or car dealership start looking at the grade or quality of the fasteners used to hold the car together, Compare a US or European vehicle's grade fasteners to the Pacific Rim built vehicles. Much higher grade and quality fasteners on US/Euro vehicles. I opened the trunk of a certain Pacific Rim car, and I never knew there was a lower grade fastener than the usual grade 4 and grade 7, the trunk latch was held in place by a grade 3 bolt. Then don't get me started on stamped metal door hinges that are weld to the door frames versus forged steel hinges bolted to the frame with high quality and grade torx or Allen type bolts on USA and Euro vehicles. I told my wife about the low-quality fasteners used on PR vehicles and she was surprised. I also said the next time you fly somewhere and you look out the window and you see a grade 4 or grade 7 bolt holding on the engine or wing RUN FOR THE EXIT!!!!

Guess which is a cheaper stamped steel Pacific Rim manufactured door hinge and fastener and which is the stronger forged door hinge and higher quality torx more expensive fastener?

"Do keep in mind, along with age comes wisdom".......................


then please explain why the older i get, the dumber i find out i really am.............

Oh thank god I'm not the only one who has experienced this. I fully expected to get flame roasted to a smoldering crisp for saying that. I think the UT video that immediately turned me off was when he was doing a run down of SBM heads and said something along the lines of "these smog heads are obviously junk" because he couldn't stuff his fat finger all the way down the intake port like he did on an 340 X head. He happened to be holding the much sought after "308" head that Larry Shepard says is the best of the SBM factory heads (obviously if max flow is the goal the intake side needs some work to compare to old 2.02 valve X or J head). Sorry Tony, I'm gonna trust the Mopar Performance engine bible and the guy who designed Mopar heads for decades more than someone with just a garage and a youtube channel.

Wisdom comes with age, only when you continually learn from others, and of course from your own mistakes. When you think you've accumulated all the knowledge that will ever be out there by the time you're thirty and anything after that is stupid because it doesn't match what you heard before, then you are just getting older not wiser. And you end up shouting at people to flip their pistons around, drive around with their truck tailgate down, only use overdrive on the freeway, and only using a purple shaft cam in a mopar, etc.

As for some of the other comments regarding getting what you pay for, etc.. I don't think that is entirely true that people shopping for low cost items is to blame for "everything being defective now". A lot of the company names we used to associate with quality have long since been bought up by corporate conglomerations, that means it is no longer a guy making bushings at Moog who determines quality standards and sets costs, its bean counters in accounting and spinsters in marketing who get huge bonuses to make those decisions.

I totally agree everything is made with junk steel i live between both Timken plants and know engineers from both plants there are no tapered bearings made by Timken steel plants (except for a few military contracts) torrington bearings are the only US made bearing and they are in Timken boxes! Because they were bought by Timken.
Moog and and your well know parts are made overseas.
One guy told me Japan actually has the best steel.
I did some research on hydraulic roller cams and was told by one knowledgeable man that's why the hydraulic roller came out was because of junk steel. I worked in a factory building excavators and have seen quality go down every year.
Which make me nervous to even buy a stroker kit !!
But it's cheaper and we can make a bunch more money!!

Well dang sorry to hear I can't count on Timken anymore. About five years ago or so I need hub bearings for a '10 Charger and they were recommended still by people on Charger forum.

This quote has already been posted on the forum I do believe but is worth another posting

"When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years".

-Mark Twain