GREAT Price on Control Arms

[tonycarreon]

just an FYI, the part is made in china - okay for my ipod, but not my car. but decent price. just replaced 1 of mine - $500 parts+labor.

[insite]

i figured it was chinese based on price alone. i'm sure the casting is fine. we'll see how long the ball joint lasts.

[clickman]

Why would you assume the casting is fine?

[insite]

Originally Posted by clickman

Why would you assume the casting is fine?

1. simple material
2. chinese factories are getting pretty good at this stuff


the ones that are getting REALLY good are the ones who market to the US & europe. lots of them are running AS9100/ISO quality programs as well. i must admit i know jack about 'URO' (mfgr) and their factories. when it shows up, i'll have one of our MatE's take a look at the alloy compared w/ OEM. i bet it's very close.

[insite]

and here we go:

http://www.apaindustries.com/uro/site/quality

URO is ISO9000 certified. most of these companies start out w/ abysmal performance records. over time, they adopt industry standard quality techniques & manufacturing processes. eventually, they can get quite good.

these guys have been around since '84. my guess is that they started manufacturing in england or the US, and then moved some or all mfg ops to china. this is always a rocky transition, but expat owners tend to be motivated to bring these operations on par w/ their domestic counterparts. just because it's chinese does not mean that it's crap.

btw, do we know where porsche buys their cast aluminum parts? i bet you dollars to donuts it is NOT germany or any other western euro country.

[insite]

one last tidbit: URO / APA is now an OEM supplier for Jaguar Classic.

[Fluellen]

There is quite a bit of anecdotal evidence on the web - not restricted to Porsches - that the URO ball joints last about a year so.

I think PelicanParts rates URO as a 3 out of 5, and their supplier ratings are typically pretty spot on.

FWIW, ISO 9000 certification does not mean much if anything at all. It's a certification that you have a quality plan in place. It does NOT certify that you are producing "quality" products... your quality plan could literally be to produce ball joints that fail in expectation after 1 month. As long as you can show that you have processes in place to meet that quality level, you'll be certified ISO 9000...

[BYprodriver]

Originally Posted by insite

1. simple material
2. chinese factories are getting pretty good at this stuff


the ones that are getting REALLY good are the ones who market to the US & europe. lots of them are running AS9100/ISO quality programs as well. i must admit i know jack about 'URO' (mfgr) and their factories. when it shows up, i'll have one of our MatE's take a look at the alloy compared w/ OEM. i bet it's very close.

Hey Insite, speaking of questionable castings any insite on the alloy used to make M96 engine parts like case, heads,cam covers? Having a hard time finding the best solution for cleaning parts without turning dark grey.

[insite]

have you tried phosphoric acid? i recommend alumiprep 33 (available from aircraft spruce). usually, it provides a nice, bright finish.

now, i HAVE noticed with certain parts that cleaning w/ alumiprep leaves the parts grey. as best i can GUESS, porsche has applied some type of anodizing to the block to help resist corrosion. in that case, mild acid treatment will leave a surface coating of antimony, which is grey.

the antimony can be removed with nitric acid (hard to get). alternatively, and i have not tried this, you can use a mixture of phosphoric & chromic acid. keep in mind these things are a little nasty.

once you've done this, any anodization will have been removed. bare aluminum WILL corrode. you can either re-anodize OR use an alodine process, which will leave a nice looking golden finish on the part. i'm getting ready to make some more drop links this week; i'll take photos of the process if you want.

the final alternative is to steam clean the parts. this should leave a nice finish without altering the anodization / surface treatments. it won't be as pretty as bare aluminum, but it may suffice.

Originally Posted by BYprodriver

Hey Insite, speaking of questionable castings any insite on the alloy used to make M96 engine parts like case, heads,cam covers? Having a hard time finding the best solution for cleaning parts without turning dark grey.

[dirkdiggler]

any word on the quality of the wearable parts on these cheap control arms?