More cost cutting?

mikey72

I bought a set of GM branded plugs today.

(As they're £1.60 trade, for N9Y equivalents)

GM have always been Bosch supplied, branded both GM, and Bosch, in a GM box.

Now as Opel in Germany appear to have control over Europe, and less input from GM itself, I was supplied with an "opel" box, with GM branded plugs in, now made in China. Not even a decent opel box either.

"German engineering" made in china.

I wonder what is actually made in Germany nowadays, or are they following our manufacturing?

TrickyWicky

mikey72 wrote: »

I wonder what is actually made in Germany nowadays, or are they following our manufacturing?

Don't be so pessimistic! Politicians LOVE manufacturing industries.. until the country has lots of money and then they'll try to abolish that "nasty, dirty, grubby, oily" industry as fast as possible.

s_b

my faith in most things Bosch stopped at least 5 years ago

jase1

Do you know who actually made the sparks?

NGK I believe have a factory in China, and they are decent plugs.

Just 'cos they're Chinese doesn't mean they're necessarily inferior.

mikey72

They're not branded (apart from GM).
But the graphics on the box are a bit amateurish.
I think the chinese are probably as good as anyone now (if you get the factory rather than the garden shed).

But what will we do when they make everything there?

Print_Screen

mikey72 wrote: »

But what will we do when they make everything there?

Buy from 'Nam and undercut them? Looks like China is doing that now if you look here so goodness knows how cheap the labour is and bad the working conditions.:silenced:

atrixblue.-MFR-.

quality of ngk in the last 5 years has plumeted, quite a few times on checking gapage it has been wrong either way out to warrant taking it back to supplier of feller gauging them back to correct gapage, once upon a time you could just fit these pre gapped plugs with confedance knowing you didnt have to set all four six eight or twelve to the correct gap but now i check all gaps on NGK plugs.

and dont even bother with lambda sensors a cheap universal has more quality than NGK has on specific model ones.

champion are more reliable brand.

again for the giants to survive costs must be cut i suppose.

mikey72

Print_Screen wrote: »

Buy from 'Nam and undercut them? Looks like China is doing that now if you look here so goodness knows how cheap the labour is and bad the working conditions.:silenced:

It's an interesting article.

Even Toyota and Honda are considering moving more prodution from Thailand to Vietnam.
It would be ironic to see china outsourcing more though.
Can you see Vietnam becoming the car manufacturer of the world?

If they're good enough for the Japanese badges, and cheap enough for china.........