Over the years, I'v bought lots of repair parts from these guys and every now and then, a bad China made part but thats expected when dealing with bottom feeder numbers. Heres a 2 in a row from those squirrely parasites. So my son buys a 2016 Mazda 6 with 150K on it. The serp belt looks original so I tell him it should be replaced along with the accompanying items, including tensioner. Hes in debt so wants budget while I put the stuff on. Rockauto sends a tensioner at about half the cost of OEM. It lasts less than 2K. What astonishes me is how poorly made this tensioner is. The tensioner ram applies upward pressure on its idler wheel. The aluminum ram eye on which its pushing down has no hardened bushing! The aluminum eye ends up going egg shape putting the bottom of the aluminum ram directly onto the belt thats riding on its idler wheel. So, the bottom of the tensioner ram is now cutting into the belt putting a fine rubber powder all over the engine compartment! So, I wanted my money back for this crap. Problem is, Rockauto only warranties these parts as an exchange for the SAME PART and you have to pay shipping back to them. Basicaly, we eat the part cost.
Being a sucker for punishment, I order a GATES tensioner kit from Rockauto figuring, they got to be better??? So the Gates China tensioner looks way better built than the econo unit. Nice big hardened bushing in the ram and nicer rubber boot, to boot. I put it on. A couple days ago, its chirping and squeaking. I'm 99 percent sure the bearing has gone belli up in the idler wheel with about the same 2K miles on it.
Currently waiting on a MAZDA tensioner to make its appearance in the mail. Hopefully, this one is made some where other than China.... but we will see.
I also replaced the coil packs over the spark plugs with what ALL WAYS used to be top shelf Jap NGK's. Nice NGK's are now from China.
Last year I put replacement power door locks in my 97 Lincoln MK IIIV. Both of them craped out in about 18 months of light use. No OEM's available. Found a slightly different China set that has yet to be put in.
Folks, the parts problem out there is sick and getting sicker! Its so bad that I read the electronic voting machines we all use are nearly all made in China And the ones that arent, are loaded with China sourced components. We are coming to the final chapter of Capitalism run amok.
No worry, cuz AI is on the way to fix everything! I guess those knuckle heads developing it never watched Space Odyssey 2001. Any of you younger guys n gals should see it. Prophetic stuff right there.