I love my CHEAP Chinese parts

[kensmurray]

I bought a made in China Schwinn self seal tube yesterday for $10.00 The bike was setting in the driveway today while we were planting flowers, heard a pop and air leaking from my new tube. Then to add insult to injury when the tire went flat the bike fell over. :x Its a shame we can't buy a quality part any more.
Kenny

 

[SCHWINNRAY69]

It's a shame that everything you buy today is junk


That's a great looking bike, hope it didn't get scratched

 

[sleepy]

There was a time when 'made in Japan' signified junk....time marches on and now its 'made in China'.

 

[kensmurray]

Now the Japanese products are made in China also. Bought the wife a Sony DVD player made in China also. :x
Kenny

 

[outskirtscustoms]

Now the Japanese products are made in China also. Bought the wife a Sony DVD player made in China also. :x
Kenny

I know and what ever happened to the good old VHS tapes? You could throw them across the room, down the stars, let the dog fetch it, and they still play fine, these DVDs won't work if you look at them wrong. Same for game systems, spend $60 on one game then the first small scratch it don't work. Back in the days of Atari and the original Nintendo up to the N64 they were all those indestructible cartridge style games that would survive years of kids and nuclear blasts... Now everything has to be a disk that has to be replaced the first time you look at it wrong. :roll:

Same goes for cars too, back in the day you hit 5 deer on the way home and you ate good for the next 5 months and maybe replace a $15 headlight, Now days you total a car if you hit a large dog and your headlights are $150 EACH or more. And come to think of it with the good old round or square glass headlights I never needed a headlight restoration kit because the plastic faded... Why did they change that again??? It has worked fine for 50 years, your auto part store only had to stock 4 sizes that fit EVERYTHING, They were cheap, and they never faded.

Ok I feel better now

 

[kensmurray]

I guess thats why we love old bikes, their simple and rarely break. My 24 yr old son and i played frogged last night on a nitendo 64 and had a blast.
I carried my tube back to Kmart, they gave me a new tube, the bike may have gotten a new scratch, but i can't tell with all the 60yrs. Of previous scratches.
Kenny

 

[Rockit!]

This is why my Spaceliner still has the original tubes :lol:

 

[Bigcam59]

Every time I tear down an older bike I marvel at the work that went into even the most mundane parts. Bearing retainers, for instance. Older ones have the manufacturer etched in the metal and some have instructions too! I pulled a bottom bracket bearing out of an old bike and the bearing retainer had "this side out" stamped in it.Go back farther and the retainers had precision holes drilled in them to keep the bearings in place rather than little foldover tabs. This was when things weren't designed to be disposable...

 

[honestherman]

They make more money off us when things are disposable. I know some people who buy nice stuff and treat it like is disposable. I want to say. Hey take care of that. You can not get that quality again. They think, Oh I will just go buy a new one.

 

[SSG]

The Chinese manufactures are making what there is a demand for, or what the retailer tells them to make. Cheap disposable crap. There are hundreds of companies manufacturing tubes alone, if one can't make the tube cheap enough, the retailer can simply move on to the next. That $10 inner tube probably cost around $0.30-1.50 each.