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  1. #1 Where is quality? 
    C-Moto Not-so-Noob
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    Hi All,

    I am trying to source components in China for my project which is to manufacture a speciality dirtbike in Zimbabwe.

    I have trawled the net for days and come across an extraordinary number of suppliers/manufacturers. How do you begin to differentiate between quality and rubbish.

    On engines I have come across Lifun, Dongben, Shineray, Zongshen who all do a 250cc wc single. They all look ok but who knows?

    On components there is some beautiful looking stuff. CNC billet etc etc. but again who knows?

    Can anyone help on an approach I could use to start separating the wheat from the chaff? I don't think its possible to go there and visit even 10% of the manufacturers.

    Thx in advance,

    Ed
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  2. #2 Re: Where is quality? 
    grumpy old sod jape's Avatar
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    Ed, you may continue not to get many if any answers. Probably because apart from urgent maintenance problems answered if someone is in a good mood, or else because someone is bored, this forum usually works better when you introduce yourself more. Maybe some pics of you on a bike, a ride report or more on your business ideas?

    Rethink some of your phrases, anyone here with any experience knows you CAN tell quality from poor. You are too general. Do you have any skill or exoerience yourself so tht if you rode them, you could tell? Do you really want to manufature or do you just mean assemble? Is this a tax issue to do that? Otherwise the sourcing of different parts and reassembling them is the chinese speciality and you could not possibly do it cheap enough yourself, thus you seem very naive! You have to know the right colonel in supply or his brother in law in a factory. Who got steel to do what on which run of components etc.

    Many, if not all of these small manufacturers are semi-independent it seems, but in fact they are tiny parts of a huge military combine, connected by obligation, knowledge, family ties, favours. You need to read up on what China really is. The names change regularly, the reality doesn't.

    And some common-sense and experience says you will in fact identify the good models and manufacturers and their strengths and weaknesses before you go - from rider forums around the world of which this is one of the best for general china bikes. You just have to read all the posts! Few would bother simply listing them for you without you start the conversation a bit more clearly, but they are all in these pages. If you intend to go there in person, you will a huge amount of help of all kinds, right up to and including introductions at factories and some bloody good advice. Show yourself a bit more first I guess.

    The members here between them have experience and information about all aspects of all kinds of china bikes - right from factory level through to best regional suppliers in china, also the good dealers and manufacturers of after-market in China and elsewhere. And so much more including experts in particular forms and types of machine right through to racing. They can often know engines, designs and components right back to the original design they are cloned from. All of which would help you.

    Someone may help, or not. A deep search, using different keywords, and a good read will show you who knows what, where and when and they may then respond to a personal message. Good luck.

    Don't ever underestimate the Chinese, despite what you may think you are reading, all about the poor quality, it is not all like that. The foremost manufacturing skills and processes can be found in China. They make space craft too and a lot of the components you would think the USA and elsewhere make for themselves are not, they come from China.

    If ever it becomes an advantage to the Chinese to make good, well-priced motorbikes and take over the world markets, they will. It is already oin the agenda I am sure, just down the page a bit, first they are getting supply routes and source material and strategic materials ownership sorted out and connecting up in a business and governmental trade obligations around the world. They learnt from the Japanese stupidity in expecting arrogant white races to ratify in writing that they were equal at the League of Nations many decades ago and that in reaction then caused most of WW2 and they since saw the results in Asia and the failure of the Japanese economy from greed, the failure of USA recently from warmongering and stupidity, and they do not intend to go that way themselves. They will take over the world because of superior action and strategy because to them we are the inferiors! How does this apply to you? Well what you want is already there. But will you get it?

    start here: http://www.mychinamoto.com/forums/sh...That-old-QM200
    the read back over a couple of years of ride reports
    Last edited by jape; 02-26-2011 at 03:22 AM.
    Kinlon R/T KBR JL200GY-2
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  3. #3 Re: Where is quality? 
    Life Is Good! ChinaV's Avatar
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    If you don't have a full time QC team in the factories monitoring your production and inspecting your shipments, 99% chance you will fail at maintaining quality.

    Cheers!
    ChinaV
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  4. #4 Re: Where is quality? 
    grumpy old sod jape's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by ChinaV View Post
    If you don't have a full time QC team in the factories monitoring your production and inspecting your shipments, 99% chance you will fail at maintaining quality.
    Cheers!ChinaV
    The guy is not even sure if he is manufacturing or assembling. and there's chinabikes in SA and other parts of Africa already. Whatever, if he wants to CONTROL quality, even if he could find the three hundred and twenty seven factories amongst four hundred and fifteen thousand that are superior, on elot of the minor internal components may not be any good fr example and stuff the whole thing, i.e. seals and bushes etc. from any month to month.

    You have to control materials sourcing and all relevant tooling and design, then all the supply logistics, control every sub-component of a sub-component, then the supply timing to meet production and tooling up of all manufacture and assembly of subcomponents and parts, then the final assembly, testing and shipping. You need highly trained and motivated staff each step of the way, you need to know the design and manufacturing intentions of each associated manufacturing line for the coming season and have all the new tooling and logistics, training and transport covered. And so on and so forth. the big boys spend BILLIONS, not millions on all this, the manufacturing it relatively cheap.

    Or else you pick amongst the Chinese factories that have got hold of second-hand western machinery on the open market, and perhaps modified it a bit. Then you look for the ones amongst them that have sourced reasonable designs, and have themselves been doing this for a few years and have the relevant resources and contacts and trained, experienced staff. Then you look for the ones amongst them that have looked outward and updated a bit, by copying or otherwise, and have established a market. Amongst all the many names you think you find in china bikes, there are only a few. They are obvious to any one read a forum over a while. Then you go deal with them.
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  5. #5 Re: Where is quality? 
    foreign China moto dude bikerdoc's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by ChinaV View Post
    If you don't have a full time QC team in the factories monitoring your production and inspecting your shipments, 99% chance you will fail at maintaining quality.
    Cheers!
    ChinaV
    Absolutely... ditto to that! Get your arse over here and see everything (EVERYTHING) first hand for yourself... don't rely on the internet, phone calls, promises and/or others! If you can't get yourself here, then I wouldn't bother expecting too much...
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  6. #6 Re: Where is quality? 
    C-Moto Not-so-Noob
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    Thx for your replies, particularly yours Jape. Let me introduce myself. My name is Edward Byrne. I live in Zimbabwe. I am a motorcycclist and currently own an SV650 and a Montesa trials bike, no Chinese machines.

    What am I trying to do? Let me explain. I am sure many of you will have come across a concept bike produced by Yamaha some time ago called an Air Tricker. There may have been a reference to it on this site some time back. Yamaha never produced this bike, just whet our appetites with pics and a little tech info. Please look it up.

    My idea is to produce something along the same lines but not a direct copy. This will be primarily a "play" bike, very light weight, easy to wheelie, possibly registerable to use on the road in an urban environment. My plan is to produce CAD images of my concept and post it on sites such as this one to assess market interest and opinion. If there is interest I might produce this on a limited scale, here in Zimbabwe. It will be sold on 2 core principals, light weight and style.

    I would manufacture the chassis, swingarm, subframe, plastics, tank, seat etc. here. What I am looking for from China are the other components. These would include suspension (adjustable), motor, wheels, brake assemblies, bars, pegs, levers, pedals, cables etc.

    I am not looking for bespoke items made to my specs. I have come across many off the shelf parts, made in China, on the internet. The advice I am looking for is which suppliers to source from. Who, for example, produces the best, most reliable and lightweight motor. 250-300cc, 4 stroke, watercooled. Kick and electric start. Is there a supplier I can source the rest of the stuff from? I have come across one called TDR MOTO. They have a lovely catalogue and their prices are reasonable. I would imagine most of their range are stock items and quality therefore should be consistent.

    I would/could produce no more than 4 or 5 bikes a month, so I would be buying in small quantities.

    I am extremely competent mechanically and have good design skills. If this happens, the bike will look very good and very unique. It will be hand assembled with great attention to detail.

    I am not looking at making a fortune at all here. If it even turns a profit I would be very grateful. It will, however, be great fun. This is also a bike I would like to own.

    So there you have it. I would appreciate any input or opinions on my idea. PM me or post on this thread.

    Thx again.
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  7. #7 Re: Where is quality? 
    Life Is Good! ChinaV's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by tradedog View Post
    I would/could produce no more than 4 or 5 bikes a month, so I would be buying in small quantities.
    You just lost the interest of every vendor in China. Nobody here is going to take you seriously for a couple hundred pieces of this and that per year. You will probably need to come here and do a purchasing trip yourself. Get a ticket to Hong Kong and then go to the Guangzhou bike market to purchase what you need, maybe a side trip to ChongQing if you can't get everything in Guangzhou. I wouldn't try doing this with a trading company online, you will most likely end up with factory rejects as your volume is not large enough for any kind of production run.

    Your project sure sounds interesting though, wish you the best of luck with it.

    Cheers!
    ChinaV
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  8. #8 Re: Where is quality? 
    C-Moto Not-so-Noob
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    Hi ChinaV, thats exactly my point. I don't need any production run. I want to buy an engine which is already in large scale production. I want components which a trading company has in its warehouse. I am not trying to interest any big Chinese company in my project, I just want to know where to buy what I need, and which ones to buy.

    Cheers

    Ed
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  9. #9 Re: Where is quality? 
    Life Is Good! ChinaV's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by tradedog View Post
    I want components which a trading company has in its warehouse.
    99% of the time there is no warehouse. These trading companies take your order and pass it to a factory. Some have a few limited pieces of stock kicking around as a result of wrong or rejected orders, or maybe samples for showing customers.

    Quote Originally Posted by tradedog View Post
    I just want to know where to buy what I need, and which ones to buy
    Which is why it's best that you come here and select the goods yourself. Not saying you can't achieve this via online methods, just saying your chances of getting screwed are very high.

    Cheers!
    ChinaV
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  10. #10 Re: Where is quality? 
    grumpy old sod jape's Avatar
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    The bikes that are best loved seem to be shineray, qlink/qinqqi, zongshen, lifan.
    You will find (if I remember rightly) that there is already some cross-over in parts and engines.
    Some prefer the lifan engines, some prefer the loncin engines but there are variations in all, such as balanced/unbalanced/ohv/ohc etc.
    Some have a good idea of the particular flow and changes in design and manufacturer over a few years, they haven't answered you yet.
    The reports you see are of better reliability in these machines. Often if you do the research they come under the same parent companies, certainly within a major manufacturing district. You will find one company claims to make the engines for another which in return claims to make the engines for the first. And then none may have any in the factory.

    Some seem to have higher performance specs than others, same engine. NOTHING can be trusted. You will find the same engines in ATV's/dirtbikes/roadbikes with small variations.
    http://www.china-parts.co.uk/acatalog/New_Engines.html
    http://www.chinesemotorcyclepartsonl...tegory3041.php

    Some say they do research and development, may even produce a bike for a show, then the bike will never appear again.

    Some companies may be found advertising abroad for technology:
    http://www.eastmids-china.co.uk/450c...chnologyn.html

    and then there are others than Chinese.
    http://www.motorcycle.co.uk/Manufacturers.aspx

    Your ideas are perfectly reasonable, it is China that isn't, to our eyes and understanding at least, it all makes perfect sense to them. You need a pretty high performance engine set up for your toys to really buzz without breaking and harming people. Have you considered importing and rebuilding performance jap engines? People do it successfully for cars, imported as scrap.

    And a beginner's question, have you approached the trade legations and business bureaus and politely sat down face to face? Have you thought of approaching a University for it as a project?

    They can do such things for soccer and get UN money, I am sure there may be an African/Chinese friendship project bureau somewhere or a chinese storekeeper whose fifth cousin is a millionaire in HK and Beijing. They may wish a vehicle to disguise armament sales through.

    Read this thread and others by Sammo. http://www.mychinamoto.com/forums/sh...&highlight=sam
    I really think you would be better off going to China, having some fun, as he is, and connecting with some guys on the street, not the factories. Get some built, ride em to hell and back, show them you have some arse - then sit down quietly with the sensible boyos and work out which are stayers and get a few smart lads to build them there in China in a shed, enjoy your friendship and the life, then ship 'em back as scrap in a crate and re-assemble back home. get some cross-culturism going if that isn't a dirty word.
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