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AutohausAZ InHouse Front Lower Control Arms

I sent them this, waiting for a reply: “I am interested in your lower control arms for the w124 chassis. Who is the manufacturer? Any kind of warranty? Any feedback/reviews? Do you have a non generic picture of ball joint? Bushings? Is this a repackaged item?”
 
They are undercutting Febi *and* Dorman by 50%? That's garbage parts right there.

"Preferred Plus" is marketing spin that means nothing except your wallet will be lighter. Kind of like "ÜRO Premium"... premium garbage is still garbage, with a fancy label.

As a bonus, note the photo of the AAZ Preferred Plus shows an EARLY LCA, not a late LCA. Wrong photo, or are they selling early LCA's as equivalent to late?


I'd rather buy good used late LCA's (with intact ball joint boots, and tight joints) and rebuild them. No way I'd use ANY of the crap AHAZ is hawking. Read @jftu105's experience with TRW aftermarket LCA's at this link, post #'s 116-144 have most of the relevant info.

:oldster:


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That's ok Dave if they undercut that much. For some reason, the shipping prices are multiples of the purchase price on anything. The shipping on the h0od pads were $90 or so - fat numbers.
 
Here’s the response I got:

"Good Morning, AAZ preferred is our brand manufactured by our parent company Empi. They are manufactured in China. We have not had any negative feedback as of yet but we have only offered our own in house brand for the last year. The warranty is 3 years. Those parts are not located at this warehouse here so I would not be able to provide additional photos however we strongly recommend against basing fitment off of photos. We provide an application filter on our website that will identify the compatibility of the part to your car"
 
EMPI is a many decades old brand, well known in the Volkswagen world, particularly in air-cooled VWs (which is what I cut my teeth on back in the 1980s). The majority of their products are very very definitely made in China these days. They source products from factories in China, though they also rebox and resell (a la FEBI) parts made by other manufacturers.

I would put EMPI these days in the same category as URO or Meyle.

In some circles, EMPI stands for "Engine Might Pop Immediately"
 
Those are early LCA's. However, Lemforder *never* sold Sportline versions of the LCA's, only standard LCA's. Years ago these were made by Lemforder in Italy, but more recently (circa 2019) they are made in Taiwan. Early Lemforder LCA's are still available new from various vendors:


1683294012901.jpeg
 
It seems that the only Chinese made product, which is highly effective is fentanyl. However, don't even think about trying it.

I will put in my share of experience of Chinese made stuff. One of my hobbies is restoring and building automatic watches. Yes, the very small stuff, requiring a magnifier for most of the work.

A friend brought me a fake Tag Heuer automatic chronograph which he received as a gift from a brother in law. The guy bought the watch in Hong Kong. In less than 2-3 years, it stopped working. In fact, his brother in law bought two fake Tag Heuer chronographs, both failed after 2-3 years. My friend asked me if I could tackle it because his professional watchmaker refused to work on the fake watch.

I am interested in learning about this famous Swiss 7750 automatic chronograph as I have two of these watches and I want to learn how to maintain them. Therefore, I agreed to work on it. After some research on youtube, I started to take it apart. This fake Tag uses a Chinese made 7750 copy, or popularly called Asian 7750. This brings me to a rant. When something is against Chinese in the US, then some stupid people, in particular politicians, will say that this is against Asian Americans. NO! When somebody says something bad about the French people, you won't it is against the entire European. Asia is a big geographic area with great many different races and China is the least respected. Chinese does not represent Asian, far from it. Taiwanese are a different race from Chinese, in case you don't know.

Along the way, several parts were broken, some might be due to my inexperience, while some were due to the poor quality. On appearance, this is very close copy of the Original Tag Heuer Link chronograph, but many of the parts are simply not in good quality. I had to overcome over 10 failures of various parts. After I finally put everything back together, one pushbutton came off. The pushbutton used in a chronograph is for starting, stop, and reset the timer. Why did it come off? It is a simple bolt into a threaded tube to hold the pushbutton in place. The bolt thread is a little too small and after two years, it was worn and came loose. After I fixed one pushbutton, a few days later, the other pushbutton came off as well.

The biggest take away is that the Chinese made stuff is not made to last too long due to the low cost and poor QC. It could be intentional to sell more stuff. When this translates into the fit between a ball joint and its socket, it would be too much to risk the life on it.

Finally, these so call clone 7750 automatic chronograph movements from China are very popular for $150 a piece, new, on eBay. On the other hand, a Swiss made ETA 7750 movement is about $500, new, at the least.

I ended up spending too many hours to get this fake watch back to life, mainly as a practice to hon my skills. Not worth it.

Finally, I am thinking about building an automatic watch with the MB star to go with my 1992 Sportline.

jftu105
 
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It seems that the only Chinese made product, which is highly effective is fentanyl. However, dont even think about trying it.

I will put in my share of experience for Chinese made stuff. One of my hobbies is restoring and building automatic watches. Yes, the very small stuff, requiring magnifier for most of the work.

A friend brought me a fake Tag Heuer automatic chronograph which he received as a gift from a brother in law. The guy bought the watch in Hong Kong. In less than 2-3 years, it stopped working. In fact, his brother in law bought two fake Tag Heuer chronographs, both failed after 2-3 years. My friend asked me if I could tackle it because his professional watchmaker refused to work on the fake watch.

I am interested in learning about this famous Swiss 7750 automatic chronograph as I have two of these watches and I want to learn how to maintain them. Therefore, I agreed to work on it. After some research on youtube, I started to take it apart. This fake Tag uses a Chinese made 7750 copy, or popularly called Asian 7750. This brings me to a rant. When something is against Chinese in the US, then some stupid people will say that this is against Asian Americans. NO! When somebody says something bad about the French people, you wont it is against the entire European. Asia is a big geographic area with many different races and China is the least respected. Chinese does not represent Asian, far from it. Taiwanese are a different race from Chinese, in case you dont know.

Along the way, several parts were broken, some might be due to my inexperience, while some were the poor quality. On appearance, this is very close copy of the Original Tag Heuer Link chronograph, but many of the parts are simply not in good quality. I had to overcome over 10 failures of various parts. After I finally put everything back together, one pushbutton came off. The pushbutton used in a chronograph is for starting, stop, and reset the timer. Why did it come off? It is a simple bolt into a threaded socket to hold the pushbutton in place. The bolt thread is a little too small and after two years, it is worn and came loose. After I fixed one pushbutton, a few days later, the other pushbutton came off as well.

The biggest take away is that Chinese made stuff is not made to last too long due to the low cost and poor QC. It could be intentional to sell more. When this translates into the fit between a ball joint and its socket, it would be too much to risk the life on it.

Finally, these so call clone 7750 automatic chronograph movements from China are very popular for $150 a piece, new, on eBay. On the other hand, a Swiss made ETA 7750 movement is about $500, at the least.

I ended up spending so many hours to get this fake watch back to life, mainly as a practice to hon my skills. Not worth it.

Finally, I am thinking about building an automatic watch with the MB star to go with my 1992 Sportline.

jftu105
Want some well made Rolex knockoffs to play with? I've got a few, I believe. I'll even cover the shipping.

I bought them while doing business in Taiwan, Kaohsiung to be specific, which is a huge port with tons of manufacturing around it. My travel buddy, who was the area manager that covered the area and a native of Hong Kong, said knockoffs were the best in Taiwan - this would have been in the 1990s.

I bought them off a lady with a pushcart who hung around in front of the hotel. My buddy spoke to her at length, after which she takes a look around, then lifts up the cloth that a lot of the watches she had were pinned to. Underneath was the "good stuff", according to my buddy. I bought several, and wore a stainless steel model for a number of years. My youngest has it now.

A few years after I bought them the crown broke off of my stainless model. I took it to the jeweler in town who made a lot of jewelry for Mrs. Dan and he opened it but wouldn't work on it, which I understood. I ended up sending it to a guy I (distantly) knew in Toronto (Shane) who fixed it for me. I think it cost me $100. Both Shane and my jeweler said it had a really high quality movement. I guess.

Dan who hasn't worn a watch in years
 
Funny, I just broke down the box that MB Naperville sent to me back in 2017 (when I lived in Texas) with the two 500E inner fender plastic liners, now NLA. HUGE box and they packed it with hundreds of inflatable bubble wrap things. Fender liners went into my deep parts stock. They were cheap back in 2017, glad I got them.
 
Here is my first attempt to create a personal MB watch. Vintage ETA 2472 automatic movement with date, repainted Fortis Skylark dial, Swiss Zeno diver case, and a Mercedes logo. I did all the repair and painting work myself. Much easier than painting a car.

I think that the MB logo is a bit too big. I probably can fill in some color inside the black ring of MB logo. Also, I probably should change the hour and minute hands to gold and larger ones. Or well, it is the first attempt. And the 2nd attempt with coloring. It would further refined from here. Also how it looks on the wrist.

Perhaps, I should color it blue or yellow. Here is some color ideas. I think yellow looks better. So, it is yellow! Now with a larger gold hands, rather than the smaller blue steel hands. Found a BMW automatic watch on eBay with similar idea but I think mine looks better.

EUR 4,990, following Gerry's fine leadership in pricing. There is only one of its kind in the world.

Who would be "That guy" for me?

jftu105
 

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Those are early LCAs. However, Lemforder *never* sold Sportline versions of the LCAs, only standard LCAs. Years ago these were made by Lemforder in Italy, but more recently (circa 2019) they are made in Taiwan. Early Lemforder LCAs are still available new from various vendors:


View attachment 166849
Does this lemforde part fit a 95 e420?
 
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