I wanted to know if others have noted a problem with the quality of parts getting worse as time passes- (Some examples here).

Replaced one original axle at around 75K, the other at around 90K. Both were typical "rebuilds". This fall, when I rebuilt the entire suspension (about 105K), one was failing, one was getting rough. I have never, ever had axles go this fast. I replaced both with "Raxles" (see my posting/axle question). Expensive, but they seem to be AAA quality, run very true, were made up of very high quality parts, and I think they are going to last, not like the other "rebuilt" crap.

Last winter I completely rebuild my 1994's brake system, and I mean I went through it.

I bought some Akebono calipers for the front- not cheap rebuilds, zink coated with new pistons, etc. (The originals had a LOT of miles on them). I mounted both, and one right away showed a leak at the main seal. After hassling with the company, and waiting, I got that one replaced and mounted it. I finished the front/rear and bled it out good, then took it to a shop to have the system powerbled- and the new "replacement" showed a slight leak at the same damned place!

I was totally fed up, and was tired of the company's crap, waiting, and having had the car on stands for so long, so I went to Honda, bought an OEM seal kit, and bench rebuild the "new rebuilt/replacement" caliper. This time, no problems (none since then).

I had rebuilt the rear drums with all OEM pistons/parts, and all the other front parts were OEM-absolutlely zero problems anywhere but the "rebuild" calipers, and they were not cheap! The shop that did the powerbleed (I know the owner)told me they had seen a lot of this s_ _ _ lately, even with very expensive "performance" calipers!

About a year ago I rebuilt the struts, and used KYB GR-2 struts. The mounting brackets (on the struts) for the brake hardware fit like crap, and to make a long story short, by this fall one had failed, and another had punched the KYB top washer through the KYB boot, along with other lesser problems. KYB gave me a bunch of static on the warranty, so I pulled the KYB's and installed the same Tokikis I installed on my Avalon 1.5+ years ago (zero problems). So far, so good, they seem to be holding up well (no slam on KYB users intended here-only what happened).

Now follow this. When I replaced the KYB struts with the Tokikos I replaced the springs with HR stock-height springs, and replaced every single bushing in the car (front/rear) with ES, except I had to use OEM new control arms for the rear (ES didn't make/wanted slightly softer than other aftermarket urethane bushings).

The car never had rear camber adjust, and the rear camber had always been just slightly out of specs (typical for the mid 1990 Accords). To cure this once and for all I bought and installed an expensive set of adjustable upper rear control arms to replace the originals- Ingalls engineering, build VERY heavy duty and with a top-quality designed look (good metal/meaty/large lock-bolts/very HD boots/good looking stuff.) They installed very easily, and the car aligned perfectly and handled like a wet-dream.

Except for one problem! The LR arm was VERY noisy at the frame-bushing. As per instructions, I injected silicone spray into/around the bushing several times, and still had the same "squawk" out of the bushing.

I called the company, and they told me "urethane is squeaky". I told them I have been doing bushings for 30+ years, and this was no minor "squeak"-I knew the bushing was bad off the line, period. They told me "how I could disassemble the unit and grease the bushing"!! I told them (politely) to kiss a rear portion, I wanted a replacement for the 1/2 of the shaft that held that bushing. Finally, one of the guys there "got it", I knew what the hell I was talking about, and sent me the 1/2 assembly.

So I tore the original out (after the car had been on stands for another week waiting while this was solved), took that 1/2 end off, put on the new 1/2, adjusted the arm and installed it, ran a new rough realign for the camber with a bubble-level, dropped the car, and guess what? No more damned squawking!! But I DID get to pay to have the rear re-aligned!!

Failed "rebuilt" axles, one with only 15K miles on it!! (I used to get 50K from a rebuilt axle- what the hell??)

God knows how many hours into the brakes/suspension and only (3) problems- every single one from an aftermarket part! Not ONE problem from dozens of OEM Honda parts! Every single problem meaning I had to "tear something back down", hassle with a manufacturer, have the car on stands longer!

With the entire (and I mean ALL) brake system redone, all three problems from aftermarket parts! All ended well- the car now handles much better that ever, and the brakes work better than when the car was new. And the REAL test- the car aligned perfectly- the new tires have around 5000 on them, and they show zero signs of "bad wear". A long surgery, but the patient lived.

Now, I have been working on cars for a long, long time, and this car since off the dealer's lot. Until this rebuild, I have used only OEM honda, and never had a part fail, ever. And I have not once had to tear something back down I had done and redo it, not for many, many years (this is the truth).

If I had paid to have this work done, it would have cost thousands, and even more, due to the fact mechanics won't warranty rework due to bad parts (and they shouldn't!!) As you all say WTF???? What is happening to parts? Before all this, I had done regular maintenance/repairs with OEM parts, never had a problem, but what the hell is going on here?

I included some detail here so newer mechanics could read this. And I would REALLY like some input from experienced mechanics whether they have seen this problem with parts, especially getting worse in the past few years?

I will warn the youngsters here, from what I have learned-be VERY careful about spending any $$$ for upgrade parts before you buy. Don't buy it because it's cool-get some recommendations from previous installers who have been running the parts for a while, not just recently installed. And if you don't have time to rework installs, and if you are PAYING to get the work done, you might think long and hard before using anything but OEM Honda parts. All this crap could really, really hurt a young person on a tight budget.

This winter I will be going through the block/head/clutch, and I am spending some serious time getting referrals before buying anything. And some of the stuff I was planning on doing, if I can't verify the parts are good quality, I will use only OEM. All in all, this was frustrating, and a little bit scary. Some of this stuff had a rep for being "great stuff". Wrenchy

 

Older the better, I usually only stick with parts companies that have been around for a hell of a while,

older cars last forever with little maintenance
...

new cars have to have parts replaced frequently..

For instance, My friends moms 90 integra has about 300k on it, an im not exagerating, They changed the oil like 3 times of the time they had it, its leaking oil everywhere, and the only thing they replaced was the transmission and distributor..

Now, these days it seems people are getting new transmissions, head gaskets, suspension parts, etc , at like 100k...

same thing with my dirtbike, i have an 86 cr250... and this thing has been beat to ****, my friend has a 2005 cr250.. things broken like 5 times already..

These days companies try to modify all there products so people will buy them.. but when infact older parts are strong and better

 

parts these are crap for one reason "money and trade"

Think about it back in the day import parts would last "forever"...why

cause the import car sales was slow and they needed a good name for themselfs..

remember the old saying in the early 90's "buy a honda they last forever"

ture at that time of age but now, The import sales are sky high even ford and chevy are weeping and there new cars are lasting longer then imports.

Big import names.. see "money"

so they make there parts last only 2 or 3 years now, by using pastic not metal anymore.

think about this... You take in your new import in for repair and the bill is like 4,000 for only 3 parts that wasnt covered. So your like forget this ill trade this in and get a newer car...

so who wins here.. the dealer..

if it was ment to last forever ,no one would want a new car if it wasn't broken would they?

 

my 2000 accord - 180K replaced Timing belts, Head Gasket, Radiator, battery - oh boy, more to come

engine mounts

oh, I need a new passenger side mirror, due to vibration fall off. (of course I am putting after market to keep up the $$$ game)

however I like Accords, nice car.

 

Dont' get me wrong- I got GREAT service out of all the original parts on the car- 75K to the first axle replacement is great, 12+ years to where the bushings/struts etc needed replacement is very, very good (TIME wears rubber parts as much as mileage does!), 100K+ to the first major break-work is unheard of. And ALL the OEM service/repair parts have bee perfect- no problems.

And some of the rebuild I might not have really needed to do, but when I work on a system (the struts for example, at 90+K) I go ahead and redo the bushings also. I will be building the engine soon, and I hate driving a car fast on the freeway that doesn't handle A+++. (And the bushings don't really cost too much-just a headache to do and it takes some time to do it right. And forget about paying someone to do them-the labor costs a fortune to redo all the bushings in a car)

The problem is with all upgrade/AFTERMARKET (NON-Honda parts) I have tried to use. I think the one respondent was right- make the parts cheap, but advertise the hell out of them (magazines/etc.) and they will still sell, sell "gloss", not true performance!

 

there's a place you can check out for axles Raxles.com they give you lifetime warranty not bad in my opinion only catch is they are a bit more pricey.
My 94 accord, 139 was the price on a drive shaft shipping and core included.
Will be trying them out, Heck ya can't beat the lifetime warranty no parts store gives ya that nor does HONDA

good luck

 

Yeah parts quality seems to be going down the tube lately, I think it has to do with what shadow_ridge said.

 

OEM parts ftw.

 

Yeah, I posted RE RAXLES on another log. I replaced the two already replaced alxles with these (both "rebuilds" lasted less than 15K before getting noisy). As I said on the other post, I looked into this guy, and bought a pair when I built the suspension. Rebuilds were about $75-$100, these were about $135/ea. The guy claims he uses only never cut/ground axles, with NEW bearings.

The order was processed FAST, and they came in (4-5?) days, right as promised. The company DOESN't process the core-charge up front- he does a "precharge" on your CC that isn't ever processed if the cores are put in the same boxes and returned within (30) days. I thought this was a very good way to do things. I read other comments about this company, and every one said the same thing- the company produces a very good product, gets you the axles fast, doesn't charge for the cores up front, and even sent an e-mail as soon as they got the cores back! In this screwed up day of crappy parts and crappy service, I have to say this company really tries hard.

They came and looked VERY good. The boots and bands were very HD, much better looking axles than any rebuilds I have ever bought. I installed them, and they seemed to run very smooth and true. Around 3-4K since they went in, but so far they seem to be what the guy advertises, so they should be well worth the money. If these hold up as I think they will, this guy has my axle business from now on. Wrenchy

 

Aftermarket is all across the spectrum, from crap to beyond OEM factory quality. OEM is 99% quality when the vehicles are new and under factory warranty, otherwise Honda's reputation will suffer. But the older the vehicle becomes, once the OEM stock has run out, the OEM supplier of the factory equipment may no longer be the vendor/supplier of the high quality factory parts you once got with your vehicle. There can be several reasons for this, mostly because they have moved on to making newer designed parts for the newer models, and the warranties have expired on your older Honda. So, the new vendor of the parts you still need might be of an inferior quality. I know of one European brand of vehicles that I swear does this deliberately, and so, I never buy OE from them, when I can get the same crap much cheaper, since I know their vendors identity, or at least, I also have the option of crappy or maybe better aftermarket parts.

As for the American vehicle mfrs, in comparison to the European and Japanese vehicle mfrs, they have the reputation for building OEM crap , so they are doomed, even if they did build something good. Its liekthe boy who cried wolf so many times that no one believe them any longer. I will never consider another American made vehicle, other than possibly a truck. I never purchased an American truck but I do hear some references to our trucks being made better than our sedans.

 

wow u call 75K out of axles great service? I wonder what's wrong with people these days........

1989 Mercury sable axles lasted 180K miles, rear strut bearing plates lasted 130K, original trans and suspension parts when the car was sold with 196K on it.

1992 Mercury Sable LS original everything except for rear strut bearing plates 143K on the car

1994 accord LX axles have 230K on them...they are original so are the struts, trans, engine and all other suspension components except for outboard driver side CV joint replaced at 144K miles....

1998 accord LX V6 axles were original with 100K on them when I sold it, trans was toast, all other suspension parts are original

2002 CL type S 90K on original axles, trans replaced, all other parts outside of ball joints are original car is still running strong.

 

Yeah, i remember a few years back I needed a OBD2 distributor for my b16a. So I called HAP recylcing because I wanted an oem unit. They said they didnt have any so they sold me rebuild one. I got the distributor and 2 months later I got a check engine light for one of the
sensors in the distributor.

So i called HAP, and they said they needed the bad one back before they could sent me a replacement. I said I cant cuz I need the car, so they said i could pay for another one and they'll give me the credit back when they get the bad one back.

So I go the 2nd distributor, after 1 week I was at a red light and heard a loud pop then my car stalled. I restarted it and it ran like **** and the check engine light was on. So i started to drive it, and it would only rev to 2000. SO I drove home 15min, shifting at 2000. I was SOOOO PISSED. This happened before I sent the first distributor back. So now, I had 2 bad rebuild distributors. So I called HAP, bitched about the garbage they sold me. And I told them i wanted a OEM used distributor from a si, gsr or type r. They said they would get it from somewhere else because they didn't have any. And its beem 5 years NOOO ISSUE.

So from now on i always check junkyards, ebay, etc for used parts.

 

you guys DO know this thread is like, 3 years old right? lol

 

Yes, I knew it. But the subject matter isn't. And everyone always says, check the archives first before posting about what has already been discussed. So, I cant speak for the other two guys, butas for me, I just wanted to add to the topic, not intending to start a new thread. But hey, if someone wants to bring this topic up again. I repost what I just said.