Substandard counterfeit-copy parts?
Posted: Sat Sep 18, 2010 10:09 am
A while ago, in pursuit of my never-ending quest to save money, I bought some genuine (according to the seller) Braun electric toothbrush heads that, despite perfect authentic packaging and appearance turned out to be the most appallingly shoddy rubbish imaginable, failing (drive to the brush head ceased) after about three uses. I am now beginning to suspect that certain 'genuine' Lotus-approved-supplier parts may be from the same provincial Chinese 'trading estate' and also manufactured with the same fine disregard for quality.
At the start of the summer my Elan started having clutch disengagement problems that proved to be caused by fairly dramatic loss of fluid from knackered seals in an equally knackered master cylinder. Rather than go the short-term re-seal route I bough new Girling (apparently) master and slave cylinders from one of the major Elan parts suppliers. Rather than faff about doing the job myself I handed it over to a long-term (39 years), Lotus-trained (Bell and Colvill) garage owner to do. Despite bleeding the system (including a session on a power-bleeding rig) a squillion times, operation of the pedal still suggested air-retention, of which there was clearly none. He eventually surmised that the return-hole sealing end of the piston was not immediately moving back if the pedal was pressed gently, allowing half of the fluid in the cylinder to seep back into the reservoir rather than being pushed into the pipe to the slave. A replacement master was obtained from the same source, with a similar outcome. He fitted the new cylinder with new, replacement seals. Same result. As it seemed to work normally if the pedal is booted in the normal way, the clutch seemed to work fine (it's a new clutch and all the gubbins, less than 1000 miles ago) and after weeks of trying unsuccessfully to fathom and resolve the problem I took the car out for a drive.
Everything worked OK at town-driving speeds. Then I went for a 'spirited' overtake (booted it hard in third, revs round towards 6K, then drop into fourth). No drive (eek!). Engine revving freely but no drive. Foot on clutch and immediately off a couple of times and drive restored (hallelujah!) I then found that I could repeat this scenario at will, my conclusion being that, for whatever reason, re-engagement of the clutch, rather than being instant, is now a gradual affair which, of course, ain't a lot of use.
Went back to report my findings to Gary (the Lotus man) who, coincidentally had just finished fitting a replacement slave cylinder ('Girling' again from the same source) to a Plus2 and was having unexplained problems in 'getting the pedal right'.
Apologies for the extreme length of this post but I felt that a full explanation might be helpful in stirring up the collective wisdom. Also, anyone else had reason to question the quality/authenticity of reputably-supplied parts?
At the start of the summer my Elan started having clutch disengagement problems that proved to be caused by fairly dramatic loss of fluid from knackered seals in an equally knackered master cylinder. Rather than go the short-term re-seal route I bough new Girling (apparently) master and slave cylinders from one of the major Elan parts suppliers. Rather than faff about doing the job myself I handed it over to a long-term (39 years), Lotus-trained (Bell and Colvill) garage owner to do. Despite bleeding the system (including a session on a power-bleeding rig) a squillion times, operation of the pedal still suggested air-retention, of which there was clearly none. He eventually surmised that the return-hole sealing end of the piston was not immediately moving back if the pedal was pressed gently, allowing half of the fluid in the cylinder to seep back into the reservoir rather than being pushed into the pipe to the slave. A replacement master was obtained from the same source, with a similar outcome. He fitted the new cylinder with new, replacement seals. Same result. As it seemed to work normally if the pedal is booted in the normal way, the clutch seemed to work fine (it's a new clutch and all the gubbins, less than 1000 miles ago) and after weeks of trying unsuccessfully to fathom and resolve the problem I took the car out for a drive.
Everything worked OK at town-driving speeds. Then I went for a 'spirited' overtake (booted it hard in third, revs round towards 6K, then drop into fourth). No drive (eek!). Engine revving freely but no drive. Foot on clutch and immediately off a couple of times and drive restored (hallelujah!) I then found that I could repeat this scenario at will, my conclusion being that, for whatever reason, re-engagement of the clutch, rather than being instant, is now a gradual affair which, of course, ain't a lot of use.
Went back to report my findings to Gary (the Lotus man) who, coincidentally had just finished fitting a replacement slave cylinder ('Girling' again from the same source) to a Plus2 and was having unexplained problems in 'getting the pedal right'.
Apologies for the extreme length of this post but I felt that a full explanation might be helpful in stirring up the collective wisdom. Also, anyone else had reason to question the quality/authenticity of reputably-supplied parts?