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Beware before you buy...

Old 02-25-2012, 03:02 AM
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Default Beware before you buy...

Hi, guys,

Saw this in the Drag forum, and thought it was a rather interesting read. Keep in mind, this is NOT a Precision bash by Garrett (even though, IMHO, I thought it was), so don't be swayed by the thread title. The Precision is simply being used as an example of what can be noted from a number of branded, reputable products on the market...

http://turbodirect.co.za/site/index....=709&Itemid=21

Last edited by Silva Bullit DC4; 02-25-2012 at 04:30 AM.
Old 02-25-2012, 03:06 AM
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Default Re: Beware before you buy...

I especially would like for Mac (the Shodan) to chime in on this article, as I value his input.
Old 02-25-2012, 03:56 AM
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Default Re: Beware before you buy...

good read indeed
Old 02-25-2012, 04:02 AM
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Default Re: Beware before you buy...

Ive read this and yes it is a direct bash on Precision, its well known that Precision started out using Garrett parts. I think that there has been a direct effect to Garrets bottom line after Precision began having their own parts produced and Garrett is now fighting back with this.
How many exploded compressor wheels have we seen with the new PTE CEA wheels? And the picture is not even of the same compressor type shown above.

i could pick out more but I'm interested to see what is said here.
Old 02-25-2012, 10:12 AM
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Default Re: Beware before you buy...

have we seen a CEA fail? i haven't read a thread on here. googled precision cea failure and precision cea exploded and nothing there either. would like to know more about the exhaust wheels. the article uses the word "inconel" which all of us know as that metal that can take extreme heat cycles and not fail. according to the place in china that makes K18, it is an inconel steel. then again it's china so lord only knows if the foundry the metal is made in is some backwater plant with a lot of crap in the steel, or it's a higher grade metal.

there does seem to be a higher number of precision failures vs garrett though, you can pick that much up just reading forums and talking to tuners.
Old 02-25-2012, 11:28 AM
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Default Re: Beware before you buy...

Good read. It starts out by saying there not bashing precision, and even mention the turbo failed due to installation error. In the end precision doesn't look to good though. In to see macs opinion.
Old 02-25-2012, 11:35 AM
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Default Re: Beware before you buy...

same here with mac. from the research i did the journal bearing precisions work fine in low boost apps. it's when you go north of 20lbs like most DSM's that the thrust plate and collars seem to fail in the precisions at a much higher rate than garrett or holset

at the same time anti garrett articles like this float around

Originally Posted by mbtech
I work at Garrett Turbos, now called Honeywell Turbo Technologies which there so proud of. When Cliff Garrett Owned Garrett He used to brown bag his lunch everyday and cared for a quality Product. If he knew what Honeywell has done now he would turn over in his grave. Honeywell bought Garrett In 1998 or 1999. After this they opened up a turbo testing lab in shanghai China and quickly moved there turbo overhaul to Mexicali Mexico, quickly after Garrett overhaul went belly-up. So they moved there whole production to Mexicali Mexico, as if that first failure was not a sign.

Garrett Turbos made a quality product for a fair price. A turbo is a precision instrument. Garrett turbos was part of Garrett Air Research (on 190th st. In Torrance ca.) Where they have a huge facility designing turbine engines, and so on. Most of the senior technicians in our main turbo facility (Lomita Blvd Torrance ca) came from our air research. If you’re building jet engines a turbo is not all that difficult. Well Cliff Garrett dies. At that time ALL production of Garrett Turbos was at Lomita Torrance ca. Also all engineering and research was there as well. After we were bought and production was sent to Mexico to save costs. Our production numbers doubled. And cost was cut in half our failure rate tripled. Well who cares Honeywell is making money and lots of it. Turbos are considered Honeywell’s golden egg. They feel that turbos are going to take over big. Which it already has in the diesel market. We make ford diesel turbos, daf, Chevrolet, some Audi, vw, fiat, Perkins. Millions of turbos. And there now all coming from china and Mexico. Well up until lately the company figured if the product was designed in the US and assembled in Mexico we would be ok. Well to further there profit and **** the customer once again....the LAST of what makes turbo American leaves in January 2011. We will close the doors to the Torrance Lab. In Torrance we did all our racing turbos (wrc stuff, Audi racing etc..) then in the garret garage we did the turbos you people buy for your Subaru’s. Actually I take that back. They take turbos that were made on a production line somewhere else in the world, and change a couple of parts on a bench in Torrance (wheels, housing..etc) and send it to you the customer saying it was made in the us.....no it was not it was just repackaged and altered a little. Well as of Jan 2011 all your turbos will be made in Mexico or china or Czech Republic. This is the last Garrett facility in the United States.

We have huge law suits pending due to turbo failures. GM is probably going to leave us.... ford has already sued us. Caterpillar has one of the largest recalls in garret history in the process. Our name is becoming ****. The last few VERY smart guys left in the company are being fired to save costs, but see our profit is already good.....they just want more. Please don’t spend 1500$ on a gt35r. Now that it’s costing Honeywell less to build turbos do you think you will see a smaller bill when you order there product? NO!. They are going to charge you even more for even less. There are countless procedures that are being terminated everyday that made our turbos THE BEST. They keep cutting corner after corner. Did you know that we shave metal off our turbine and compressor housings until they are at the EXTREME minimum needed to contain in the event of failure they are shaving every nickel off the cost of a turbo. Did you know that 2000$ gt40 you buy is all mark up. I won’t dare say the actual cost to the company in fear of a lawsuit but lets just say your sales tax is more then the production cost.

Do not buy these turbos. BorgWarner and mitsu are trying there best to compete with us making a quality product. Honeywell is using its big name to back junky turbos Like Toyota is starting to do. I guarantee in the next 8 months you will see a huge decline in quality. All designing and production is in CHINA AND MEXICO. Honeywell is taking back all there benefits they used to supply us with as employees. That way when they lay us off its as cheap as possible. Instead of saying "Well after we take a hit laying those people off we will make tons" they are just taking back all there benefits so they walk away clean and clear. We used to get a severance package. Which they just took away. One of the head engineers involved in the t3 project. (Designing the first t3) he is still with our company. he was supposed to get 44 weeks of pay if he ever got layed off (30 days and 1 week for every year with the company. 40 years with the company)Due to the new Honeywell rules he gets only 16 weeks pay they stole all that pack after promising it to him for 40 years. My fingers and about to fall off typing all this and I am heated so I don’t care about grammar I’m concerned about you people not supporting a **** company. Take your business elsewhere. Somewhere where you will get what your money pays for. Have a nice day and don’t forget if you hear the name HTT Honeywell Turbo Technologies Stay away

(They still use the garret stamp on the turbos)
Old 02-25-2012, 12:07 PM
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Default Re: Beware before you buy...

Originally Posted by Natural Aspirations
How many exploded compressor wheels have we seen with the new PTE CEA wheels? And the picture is not even of the same compressor type shown above.

i could pick out more but I'm interested to see what is said here.
Actually, its not the compressor wheels that is the essential issue. Unfortunately, I have seen first and second hand quite of few turbine wheel /housing failures from some high-dollar racers over the last year or so based upon the housing's failure to contain the destroyed turbine wheel at higher boost pressures, (mainly due to lack of burst testing on the turbine housings themselves during turbine wheel failure), but I tend to keep that to myself only because it becomes really dicey when you divulge information like that on a forum like this without turning it into some sort of witch hunt. It becomes messy, inappropriate, and could lead to a lot of defamation lawsuits. This is why I won't comment any further on the issue. (That's like giving a toddler a pint of lighter fluid and his slightly older brother a butane lighter, and you just wait to see what happens; you know what will happen is bad for everyone, no matter how curious you get, so its best not to do it at all.)

For what its worth I hope Precision in the meantime has taken the opportunity to learn from some errors as a result of these issues (as we all have made serious errors in our lives) and improve upon them to make a great product like they have in the past. Similar to the article, Precision MUST have different sizes of their internal components from Garrett, otherwise they are in violation of a lot of copyright laws. The difference between that and your average ebay turbo is that Precision is an American company with its principal place of business in Indiana. It wouldn't take long for a nice expensive feud between Garrett and Precision to ensue, so Precision played it safe, and made their components similar enough to Garrett parts without breaking the law, yet still make the turbo the way they were used to developing with. cie la vie.

The Chinese ebay knock off usually can't be attacked because they don't fall within U.S jurisdicitons. You think Turbos are the only thing copied? There are Billions of dollars in other industries that suffer the same counterfeit situation as this, but, because of people's less disposable income and a bad economy, most think these are viable substitutes, no different than you or me in this industry.

I hate all the bashing, be it Precision, Garrett or otherwise, as it just downgrades the industry to a point where the only place you can be sure things are decent are back to the OEM diesel crap again from the late 80s. . Its disappointing, and not to say Garrett or Borg-warner is perfect either, its just that because they base their industry on the OEM more than the performance market, there are some areas of testing that they CANNOT avoid for public safety reasons and as a matter of public policy. (Turbine explosion testing, Turbine housing burst testing, etc) that aftermarket companies like Precision, Turbonetics, FP, and others can bypass because they are meant for non-public use.. (Even though we use them in the public anyway). But that's changing.

That's all I'm going to say about the matter.

Last edited by TheShodan; 02-25-2012 at 12:28 PM.
Old 02-25-2012, 12:27 PM
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Default Re: Beware before you buy...

These are all very interesting reads.
Old 02-25-2012, 12:49 PM
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Default Re: Beware before you buy...

That anti-garrett articles is so fake, it's worse than fake ****.


Anyhow, I am definitely a Garrett fan here... Besides my own cars, I've seen so many failures from other brands (not naming names here) on friend's and customer's cars. Garrett is not perfect, but still gets all the props from me because I never had a failure on them all these years (besides my GT28RS that took in debris after a motor related issue).


Tony the Tiger's turbo history:

Garrett:
T4/T04B
- was in my IS300 in 2006-2007
- sold, still running in customer's IS300 now

GT28RS
- was in the Integra in 2002-2004
- died from motor failure

GT2871R - sold, still running in customer's Civic SiR time attack car

GT3076R - currently in my IS300 (about 3 years old, DD car for my parents now)

GT4088R (purchased Feb 2006)
- in the Camry from 2006-2008
- in the Supra in 2008 for a couple of months
- in the IS300 for half a year
- currently in my Integra since 2009

GTX3076R - currently in Evo, current DD

GTX4508R - Currently in Supra (2 years old)


Precision:
PTE 6265 BB
- was in the Integra
- died within a few days (made 600 WHP)

Turbonetics:
T4 P-trim/T67 BB
- was in the Camry, 2003-2004
- lasted a year then leaked oil everywhere


HKS (Garrett CHRA):
T51R KAI
- in the Supra in 2009
- in the Camry since, then upgraded (sitting in the basement now)

T51R SPL
- in the Supra in early 2010
- currently in the Camry (summer DD)
Old 02-27-2012, 06:20 AM
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Default Re: Beware before you buy...

I have a 6262BB. This makes me nervous on owning it... they could have sanded out the products name lol
Old 02-27-2012, 07:18 AM
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Default Re: Beware before you buy...

Havent had a problem with my Garrets after owning for 2 years.
Old 02-27-2012, 07:41 AM
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Default Re: Beware before you buy...

^^ +1
Old 02-27-2012, 09:40 AM
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Default Re: Beware before you buy...

Originally Posted by Tony the Tiger
it's worse than fake ****.

ya but.....i love fake ****......
Old 02-27-2012, 09:54 AM
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Default Re: Beware before you buy...

Fake **** rock.... Idk what that guy is all about, ***** real on the outside.
Old 02-27-2012, 09:55 AM
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Default Re: Beware before you buy...

Actually I can't see one downside, fake or not....
Old 02-27-2012, 01:00 PM
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Default Re: Beware before you buy...

Interesting read.
Old 02-28-2012, 04:30 PM
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Default Re: Beware before you buy...

i deal with a lot of aftermarket OEM parts, and i quite often see Garret boxes with "made in china" on them. same for schwitzer....
Old 02-28-2012, 05:25 PM
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Default Re: Beware before you buy...

Compressor wheels for some the GT wheels are made in Mexico, steel ball-bearing Cartridges still made in Japan, some are done in Taiwan for the T3/T4 Garretts, and some switzers are made in Singapore.

Everyone, get over it, please. Nothing is completely made in the USA anymore, otherwise, no one here could afford it.
Old 02-29-2012, 09:29 AM
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Default Re: Beware before you buy...

Originally Posted by TheShodan
Everyone, get over it, please. Nothing is completely made in the USA anymore, otherwise, no one here could afford it.
LOL, such a good point.

When I want a pure quality turbo, I go for HKS. At least they are still all assembled in Japan (the signature series). Just pay $4000+ for one (I got two!)
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