Why do we put up with bad quality?

**forchetto** · 04-20-2009, 07:51 PM

Why do we put up with this sort of poor quality?:

Just reading a road test where, and I quote:

“ Poor performance was traced to weak valve springs and a badly adjusted carburettion and ignition at the factory...a fast tickover was necessary to prevent plug fouling...tranmission snatch was evident at below 3000 rpm...the handlebar brake lever was seen bending under the stress of heavy braking...steering weaved all over the place at high speeds...after a couple of 1000 miles several bulbs were broken due to vibration, this vibration had split a fork shroud, the rear number plate and the battery carrier broke. The next 1000 km brought another broken battery cradle, the rear mudguard had split at all its mounting bolts, the other fork shroud split, the headlamp mounting bracket had sheared its welds, the regulator-rectifier mounting tab had broken...
There was a constant need to re-tighten nuts and bolts that kept coming loose.
The reverberation through the silencer meant the pillion passenger could not keep his feet on the pegs for more than a few seconds at a time as the silencer mounting bolt shared the same bracket as the footpegs...oil leaks from tappet inspection caps and pushrod tunnel and oil consumption of 400 miles per pint...”

Errr...

Wait a minute chaps...I'm sorry, I’ve picked up the wrong road test by mistake, this one is from a November 1967 Motorcycle Sport Magazine and the bike?: a brand new Triumph Daytona 500. At that time Triumph had been making bikes nearly 70 years...

So you see, we’re not that badly off with our Chinese junk.

**CrazyCarl** · 04-20-2009, 09:27 PM

I agree, things could be much worse and at least the Chinese companies are trying to get it right despite the loong looooong loooooooooong road ahead of them. They got a bit of a head start with some Japanese design help and now just need to work on the marketing and RnD.

In 5-10 years Chinese vehicles could be good competition for just about anybody if they play their cards right.

CC

**Snortin Norton** · 04-21-2009, 12:42 AM

Originally Posted by CrazyCarl

I agree, things could be much worse and at least the Chinese companies are trying to get it right despite the loong looooong loooooooooong road ahead of them. They got a bit of a head start with some Japanese design help and now just need to work on the marketing and RnD.

In 5-10 years Chinese vehicles could be good competition for just about anybody if they play their cards right.

CC

--------

As dispondant
as I can get with China quality sometimes , tis kinda rare though now compaired to what it used to be , for me that tis . I am more dispondant over marketing and parts , big time .
I own tons of China stuff, not just motorcycles, some of it is exceptional . I hope the trend continues , and of course they can see into
the future as well as I do ...

Cheers, Kelly out

**Sprocket** · 02-04-2010, 01:15 AM

My father after first finding out about this bike I bought, first laughed, then he sought reviews and the laughing got less, now it is comparing the China bikes to early Japanese bikes, but not quite so bad as what early Japanese imports were, due to the fact that these bikes are largely copies of proven Japanese machines. Now look at it, where it was before the biker had the British bike, the market is now dominated by the Japanese bike. I remember the Japanese bikes of my youth, known for advanced rust and flaking chrome plating, even the cars, the old Datsuns and my first auto love, the Toyota Celica 1600 ST, all rust buckets from new, now, what are the best cars on the road, what are the most highly specced for the money and the most reliable, Japanese autos. I feel China is now poised to become as good, if not better than the Japanese, at first the Japanese copied, then they designed, and became the most innovative and the best, China can do that too. The Japanese won the Brit biker on cost, China can beat the Jap biker also on cost, I have a China bike, because I cannot afford a Jap bike, they are prohibitive to me amd many others and also from what I have seen so far, engineering wise, these bikes are pretty well put together, I have no worries from what I have seen from my personal inspection, in fact, I feel one up on the similar Japanese machine owner, as I feel this bike is as good, but not as pricey.

Advice to the Chinese, persevere, grab hold of the quality issue and correct the faults where they are, and get the bikes out there in competition, prove them to the rest of the world. Names like , Qinqi etc, how alien are they to the Japanese names that hit our shores in the past, Suzuki, Kawasaki, Honda and Yamaha, in Britain at least, they were not known at all for anything other than spurious low priced foreign imports, those names went on to be big, China can do that too.

I hear lately of established well know makes of bike and car starting to suffer niggly problems that were not apparent before with other products, well, my answer to this is no matter how popular and how good one becomes, never rest on your laurels, create a standard, keep to it or improve on it, never let things slide due to a name or thought, buyers are fickle when it comes to spending money.

**jape** · 02-09-2010, 03:09 AM

Well whatever the politics and the economic wars going on, a quick look around my home shows me most clothes, whitegoods, TV, some food, just about all tools all come from or via China. The quality in most is as good as from anywhere. heck, chinese cloths used to be always too small/short, shoes too narrow, tools cheap and nasty. It has taken about ten years to get that right so hopefully with bikes (and the new cars/trucks like the 'great wall 4wd') we will be there soon. Yes, we have to complain but that can be disconcerting when your complaints are ignored by dealers importers and amkers but slowly but surely these things always change. We are the pioneers and win by it, the saving I made on my own lovely piece of chinabike crap will easily cover repairs and extras needed - as long as it doesn'r kill me meanwhile. I will always be grateful for the opportunity chinese goods have given me as much as I am sometimes annoyed at the quality, else on my disability pension I would not have had the opportunity to take up motorcycling again, simple as that. And then I watch HD TV when I am indoors, connect to internet via my chines usb modem, make bows and arrows with my chinese tools. I just wish someone would import cheap chinese girlfriends, I love chinese food but can't get it where i live! I wouldn't mind if some bits fell off during the running in period ...