Foreign made parts

My Farmalls are becoming more "International" all the time. I just got a throttle linkage for my A and it said made in Turkey. I had a starter on my M made in China, a voltage regulator on my 300U made in India and a tire on my F-14 made in Poland. Makes you wish for the days when everything was made in Japan (just kidding).

Charlie, I have to agree with you. My preference (but not requirement) is to use good used parts or NOS whenever possible. However, there are some parts that you just have to go with what is available.

It works both ways. I had a 3 hour boat trip in China recently and the boat was powered by 2 American made Caterpillar engines!

I agree, but the Cat engines were built to last. The replacement parts that China and India are making for the tractors are junk and only last a few years if that long. I do not understand why they can not make things with the same quality as original parts. I know it is not the countries themselves, but the business owners that cheapen things up to make a larger profit. I would be happy to pay for quality. I am not shopping at Walmart for my tractors, I am going to the dealerships.

You have to take the bad with the good.

If not for the cheap foreign-made parts, a lot of guys wouldn't be able to afford to fix their tractors. It's keeping the hobby alive, and saving a good number of tractors from the crusher.

For hobby use, the parts are fine. Most of these tractors won't ever see the kind of work that they did when they were new, so a part that would only last a few years, lasts forever.

The foreign country's can make anything we are willing to pay for. If you're only willing to pay $1 for a $2 part guess what you will get.

The bottom line is that China is capitalizing on our willingness to throw stuff away.

Just think about how quickly everything in our lives becomes obsolete these days. You buy something, and chances are, three years down the road you won't even want whatever it is, even if it still works like new.

And if you buy something that's cheap, if it does break, or doesn't work, you're really not going to be bothered with returning it. It's just not worth the effort.

Even if you DID, it's certainly not going back to china!

All the chinese factories care about is making the product for a year or two, then moving onto something else. If that product fails in the field, why on earth would they care? They already got their money.

All they care about is selling as many of them as they possibly can right up front, and that's done by making them cheap. And the big profits come from making them even cheaper than spec'd once they get the contract.

And I'm not bashing China, they're just supplying what we're demanding.

We'll just keep buying the junk, and tossing it when it doesn't work. As long as it LOOKS like what we want, that's what matters. That's the step that extracts the dollar bills from our wallets. Everything after that is just noise.

If people stop buying a product because it becomes known as junk, somebody else will come along and put a fancier box around it, and get us to pay for that one.

The sad truth is that there just aren't enough of us left who NEED or DEMAND quality. These days, most americans simply don't own anything that needs to last.

Those of us with old cast iron tractors are a dying breed. We're not a very profitable market.

Depressing to think about.

You do realize that Caterpillar has a chinese manufacturing facility don't you? You would be hard pressed to verify that some or any of the parts were actually made in the good ol' USofA.

http://marine.cat.com/cda/components/fullArticle?m=233421&x=7&id=1008021

See link above.

Sir,You have said the truth with that statement!!!

This is a problem in the auto repair industry also, poor quailty replacement parts ! My biggest headaches and largest money and time wasters are those cheap off-shore,far east,sorta-fit parts. I wish I always had an American made alternative,but most times you have to use what you can get in a reasonable amount of time. People cannot be with out their auto very long ! Tractors for fun are a different story, I would pay more and wait longer to get a real,quality,OEM fit part everytime. Good used OEM parts are almost always better than new China replacements in my book.

The fit, finish, and general quality of the carb kits for these old tractors is going downhill fast. If a U.S. manufacturer doesn't step up to the plate real soon and start building QUALITY replacement parts for our classics, I can forsee the time when all of these old tractors will just get scrapped out.