China bearings

Last year I replaces two 1 15/16 inch four bolt flange bearings on my flail mower blade drum. One China bearing, and one Dodge bearing US made. Checking the bearings for this season. The China bearing is still tight, and smooth. The US bearing is loose, but still smooth. Probably normal wear as it is on the drive end. The China bearing wasn't real cheap, like some I see. Maybe China is getting their act together as far as bearing manufacturing. Wouldn't be surprised if some US manufactures are having the bearings made in China. Stan

I have seen China bearings being the correct size, but having less balls or rollers in them,,rarely am I satisfied with any thing from China, the Land of "Almost Right"...

China has the ability to produce outstanding products if the American customers are willing to pay for them. The customers (in your case the bearing importers) write the specs and define the quality needed. The Chinese are not at all dumb and their technology at least rivals, if not surpasses, the USA. But they produce to the specs since they have to make a profit too.

I agree no china bearing here. Tom

I recall about 20 years ago the circuit breaker mfg. I was working for spent big $ sending engineers and tech. info to Hong Kong so they could make quality circuit breakers.

It must have worked. About 5 years later, the company folded up. I guess after that the Chinese could make as good a product cheaper.

If you have satellite tv China launched the rockets.

In 1980 I started working an auto/industrial/farm supply store. One day my boss/owner commented that they sold BCA bearings because they were American made. I then went to the storage shelves and grabbed about 6 different # bearings and showed him the country of manufacture on the box back. China, India, Yugoslavia, USA, and several I don't remember but only 1 was USA.

Five years ago when I bought a new John Deere MX8 the gear boxes said ?Made in China?

The gear box on our new bush hog is made in China, when I commented about it the sales person said "you can buy a new one for $275"! But, that was before the trade war! So why did the bush hog cost $2200? It's a POS!

We were in your neighborhood today, went to the San Diego Zoo!

(quoted from post at 20:36:00 03/01/19)
China has the ability to produce outstanding products if the American customers are willing to pay for them. The customers (in your case the bearing importers) write the specs and define the quality needed. The Chinese are not at all dumb and their technology at least rivals, if not surpasses, the USA. But they produce to the specs since they have to make a profit too.

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ou nailed it!

You were close.I live about 30 mile north of the zoo. Stan

I burned up some roller bearings on my JD round baler. Looked around and Seiko (the Japanese watch co.) had exactly what I wanted at a price I wanted to pay...ebay. Got them and I guarantee you, as fine product I ever had in my hand, made in China......what you get (seems to me) is what the customer (Seiko in this case) orders, from junk to some fine quality products.

I'm as redneck as the next guy but the oriental mindset needs to be recognized.....Toyota and Datsun's US invasion for one instance......what did we have before their arrival and what did we get from US automakers as a result....think about it. Still remember a news article where the CEO of GM, forget the year but the article said his annual comp. was around $400k, to put you in the ball park time line, said basically that GM would build what it wanted to and the American consumer will just have to buy it as they have no alternative........well we found out just how misguided he was!!!!!!

(quoted from post at 23:44:41 03/01/19) I burned up some roller bearings on my JD round baler. Looked around and Seiko (the Japanese watch co.) had exactly what I wanted at a price I wanted to pay...ebay. Got them and I guarantee you, as fine product I ever had in my hand, made in China......what you get (seems to me) is what the customer (Seiko in this case) orders, from junk to some fine quality products.

I'm as redneck as the next guy but the oriental mindset needs to be recognized.....Toyota and Datsun's US invasion for one instance......what did we have before their arrival and what did we get from US automakers as a result....think about it. Still remember a news article where the CEO of GM, forget the year but the article said his annual comp. was around $400k, to put you in the ball park time line, said basically that GM would build what it wanted to and the American consumer will just have to buy it as they have no alternative........well we found out just how misguided he was!!!!!!

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ark, you were there when we were forced to attend all those "Quality is Free" presentations (Deming) & I say that that is exactly why we as consumers see so much sorry junk. His line was to re-define 'quality', as being what the customer requires (not Roll Royce 'quality' or whatever). The manufacturer's customer is not the consumer, but some distributor, wholesaler, importer, etc. So, those intermediaries 'require' the cheapest product & sell it to us, the consumer, at the highest profit. He changed the whole meaning of "quality" for the whole world forever. His teachings made him rich, as every major corporation took up Deming seminars, books, etc.

My wife worked in qc for years for various companies and for the most part qc was a necessary evil and rarely were recommendations followed.
I went through the same thing with my company. They hired experts to identify and strengthen certain areas of quality but the company
ignored what they had paid for and it came to light it was just an effort to raise their A M Best rating.

You really didn't want to work there very much longer did you?

Yea its really hard to pin down exactly where something originated these days "Made in XXXX" has a very loose meaning.Like some JD tractors that are supposedly 'made' in Georgia USA where they
bolt together major sections from all over the world.I'd call that assembled not 'made'.

I manufacture wheelchair wheels and tires and install the bearings. I have bought thousands of bearings a year since the 1980's. I was buying bearings before US bearing companies stopped production because of price and brought them in from China. The first bearings made in china sold by the US company I was buying from were noisy and brought in complaints from my customers. I found a bearing company that told me they had the same problem until they set up their own QC people in China. I have been buying from this company since without the first problem. I just now started to get a 25% increase in price because of the reciprocal trade tariff's. Reciprocal tariff definition is that, that the new 25% tariff was paid to China thru the unbalance trade. It was also called loss of manufacturing jobs before tariffs.

60 years ago when I was painting cars as a second income at home some people would say I charged to much. I decided to have three prices. First price was with removing trim before painting. Second price was to mask trim and paint. Third price was no masking and painted with a roller. Even 60 years ago you would get what you pay for. Cheap is cheap and there is a difference in cheap and less costly.

And so what do you due for bearings that are only made in china?

(quoted from post at 23:03:29 03/01/19)

(quoted from post at 23:44:41 03/01/19) I burned up some roller bearings on my JD round baler. Looked around and Seiko (the Japanese watch co.) had exactly what I wanted at a price I wanted to pay...ebay. Got them and I guarantee you, as fine product I ever had in my hand, made in China......what you get (seems to me) is what the customer (Seiko in this case) orders, from junk to some fine quality products.

I'm as redneck as the next guy but the oriental mindset needs to be recognized.....Toyota and Datsun's US invasion for one instance......what did we have before their arrival and what did we get from US automakers as a result....think about it. Still remember a news article where the CEO of GM, forget the year but the article said his annual comp. was around $400k, to put you in the ball park time line, said basically that GM would build what it wanted to and the American consumer will just have to buy it as they have no alternative........well we found out just how misguided he was!!!!!!

Click to expand...

ark, you were there when we were forced to attend all those "Quality is Free" presentations (Deming) & I say that that is exactly why we as consumers see so much sorry junk. His line was to re-define 'quality', as being what the customer requires (not Roll Royce 'quality' or whatever). The manufacturer's customer is not the consumer, but some distributor, wholesaler, importer, etc. So, those intermediaries 'require' the cheapest product & sell it to us, the consumer, at the highest profit. He changed the whole meaning of "quality" for the whole world forever. His teachings made him rich, as every major corporation took up Deming seminars, books, etc.

Click to expand...

I graduated from Purdue in 2006, They were teaching Deming then. My prof was the financial manger for some guy named DeLorean.....I will leave it there.

Nixon gave China technology to accurize the bearing manufacture. Which accurized the nukes they had pointed at us.

(quoted from post at 17:36:00 03/01/19)
China has the ability to produce outstanding products if the American customers are willing to pay for them. The customers (in your case the bearing importers) write the specs and define the quality needed. The Chinese are not at all dumb and their technology at least rivals, if not surpasses, the USA. But they produce to the specs since they have to make a profit too.

Click to expand...

EXACTLY.China will build what you want and build it to your specs.

People blame the Chinese but actually need to blame the greedy US importers for the crappy products they have manufactured in China

I know you attended "Juran on Quality" seminars too. I really liked his approach.
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For you folks that didn't get that privilege his comments:

A Ford (Pinto was the ref as I recall) is just as quality a product as might be a Mercedes if it conforms to the specification. The specifications define
what category of automobile each occupies and defines the amenities and performance specification among other things. A Ford Pinto was designed to
fit a niche, low cost market whereby the Mercedes may be designed for the luxury sedan market.

Another comment of his was this: Your sights for your factory's production has to be at 100% acceptance. If you are satisfied with 90% then you just
built yourself a factory to build JUNK to the tune of 10% of your operations budget/profits...........makes perfect sense to shoot for 100% when you look at
it like he does.

Juran was the guy who was sent to Japan during the post war reconstruction and taught that country how to build quality products.....I think they
listened well. They didn't do it over night. I recall as a young lad that things with their country's marking were far from satisfactory for the intended
purpose...as best I could tell with my uneducated opinion at the time.

Jess, I still have my student reference manuals.

We were ISO 9001 Certified (takes about a year of working with ISO inspectors) which proved that we as a company, followed the specifications and
other requirements dictated by our customers.

Tractor companies get ISO 9001 certified too. As I recall either Branson or the parent Kukje Machine Works of S. Korea holds that honor also. The two I
have attest to their capabilities.

Spell DO Right! Larry

I have a lot of respect for John Delorean,,he was very innovative,,so much that the big 3 car company's feared him and eventually screwed him over..

IIRC even SKF has a factory in China. So does Metabo.