yeah, I missed that part. lol

Looking for the 98.

 

Will edit. Thx.

 

Hmm, at EDM the OEM belts (alternator, power steering, A/C and the main belt) are from Gates UK.

 

Everything here comes from Bando or Mitsuboshi Japan.

 

I work at NAPA in Spokane,WA. You can get or search for your part on this site, at napaonline.com. They do offer discounts to most places if you show proof of identification of employment to where you work. Just saying, its always nice to receive some kind of discount for your parts. Most aftermarket part auto manufacturer is said to meet or exceed oem, of course this isn't always true but I do believe we carry quality aftermarket parts. We do have a Altrom specifically for all imports. That's what I use on my 1993 Honda Civic Si.

here's an example of an oil filter
http://https://www.facebook.com/phot...type=1&theater

 

I stopped using NAPA after they some how ordered the wrong alternator for my old 85 k-car. How do you eff that up?!?! For serious.

 

It's mostly true. In a few very rare cases the aftermarket has a better product. The one that immediately springs to mind is the notorious leaky B-series cam seal. The aftermarket aluminum block with O-rings is supposed to be a much better setup.

 

mitchh29,

It seems like Honda has very, very high standards for its parts suppliers. This is a good thing - a very good thing. However, it's also important to remember that not all aftermarket parts are created equal. In fact, it's possible in many cases to find OEM supplier that Honda uses and you can buy that part through aftermarket channels without paying the dealership mark-up.

 

Some stuff you can through aftermarket channels, but not nearly as often as I would like. The balljoints and shocks for example are made by Musashi and Showa respectively, but they're not available through aftermarket channels. Transmission bearings are made by NTN, have an NTN part number stamped on them and still can't normally be ordered from a bearing and seal supplier.

Just as an FYI a lot of Honda's suppliers are very old companies, and they're very, very good at what they do. As an example, Showa, who makes Honda's shocks and some of their springs, has been around since 1938. They started out making suspension for landing gear on military planes.

 

Planes for which military? Uhoh .... can of worms opened.

 

Thank you for this write up, as I'm from Canada and it's hard to find good online websites that ship, that also aren't an arm and a leg.

Cheers!

 

what are good options for an upper control arm and all that?

I see some really to good to be good options on ebay...

should I just get the oem part from honda parts unlimited?

 

Been using rockauto parts for awhile. I just wanna say the slotted and drilled combo they sale has been wife proven after warping 3 sets of factory rotors, and braking is alot better.

 

Great info! Some I knew, some I didn't. Thanks for sharing.

 

I won't buy another Gates belt for my Hondas. After TWO days of fighting with a timing belt- it would not go on both cam gears without being a tooth off...and I triple checked that it was the right belt. I went down to Autozone (which I despise) and got a different belt. I compared them side by side and on top of another- the Gates belt was shorter than the new belt. There was no way that Gates belt would have fit! The new belt went right on- no problem.

 

I personally haven't had issues with Gates belts. I've also used Goodyear Gatorbacks for my accessory belts.

Did you check your Gates belt with another one of the same part number? Is it possible that it was mislabeled somehow? I don't think it's fair to make statements like this off of one instance where something didn't fit.

 

How does FEBEST quality compare? I am thinking of getting the A/C idler pulley kit :


wondering if anyone has used them before for OEM spare parts?

 

In regards to Brembo, I work at a warehouse that distributes parts for a lot of mechanics and parts stores (big box and mom n' pop) in the West Penn region like Pep Boys, Advance, Napa, etc etc...

We sell mostly rotors, hell it's our bread and butter. So you can imagine, we order rotors by the shipping container. Most of the generic rotors(Aimco,Wagner,Raybestos, ProChoice, Powerstop etc.) came from China on the same container from the same outsourced manufacturer. While our Brembo rotors had to be ordered directly and came in on our shipping container from Europe.

All that changed about 2 years ago, Brembo along with a few other premium manufacturers outsourced to China for their OEM lines.... To the very same company that sources the generic brands now. Our Brembos no longer have the "Made in Italy" stamp on them and they come in on the same container from China now. And most unfortunately, they also come with the same quality as the other Chinese sourced rotors because they now cost the same as the other Chinese sourced rotors though the MSRP on the invoices remain higher that the generic brands. Just paying for the name at this point. The warranty on the Brembos hasn't changed but that can be attributed to the low replacement value of the rotors. The price distributors get for them now is only a fraction of what it used to be, about 6-9 bucks per rotor compared to 15 and up before. As a result our stock of Brembos nearly tripled from before and we now stock them among the generic rotors in our warehouse rather that in our premium section, mainly due to the volume we now carry.

A lot of you have probably noticed the amazing deals on "Brembo blanks" in the marketplace popping up over thee last year or so. Well, there's the reason why Brembos are getting so cheap, because they are cheap now.

Brembo now only manufactures ultra high end OEM and aftermarket, rumor is that soon they will be outsourcing all of their 1-piece rotors to China. So keep a look out for the "Made in Italy" stamp, Brembo will not stamp the Chinese sourced rotors with anything at all.

 

Man, you just saved me a big money waste, was very curious as to why a set of brembo blanks was only 100$ on our local craigslist (cheap for where I live) when it used to be dbl or even triple that. No made in italy stamp on them.

 

So much for "Brembo blanks are better".

 

very nice thanks

 

Yeah - so who's left now? I thought there were some Made-in-Australia ones out there that are still decent; can't think of the brand name though.

 

You might check out Ate, they're a German OE manufacturer that makes some pretty good rotors, I have a set on my car now and have put roughly 30k on them without any issues. If you manage to find some I suggest you scoop them up, I'm hearing that Ate is going to shutdown their OEM line soon.

I've also heard good things about the Bosch Quietcast rotors, they are still made in China, but from a Bosch owned plant. The only thing I can really say about them from personal experiece is they they are much lighter than the usual China sourced rotors, but I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not. They also come packed dry, as in they aren't covered in grease like the Chinese cheapos are.

Another brand you might look into VGX, one of our best clients uses those exclusively and swears by them, he's been trying to convince my boss to start stocking them so he doesn't have to buy from our main competitor.

 

Interesting, re: VGX. More info here: http://vgxbrakes.com/ and here: http://autopartsource.com/companyNews/index.php

Description states rotors are manufactured in Brazil from Brazilian steel. Price for a Civic front rotor (240mm) is a whopping $17. And free shipping, even to CANADA. I'll sign up for that.

 

Note also that the brake pads they retail, are Made in Canada, unbelievably. New World Friction. These companies are definitely worth checking out. Thanks for the tip.