Incompetence, Mendacity in the Rebuilding Industry

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I needed to replace the power steering pump in a Freightliner truck and a new one from Freightliner is $1300. Because of the cost I looked into rebuilt ones.

First shop rebuilt my old one for $400. I installed it and found it did not work. Took it off and took it back to the same shop. Got it back and it still did not work. This pump is not easy to get at, gear driven by the timing gear train, at the back of the timing gear case and tucked in between the engine and frame rail. I had to remove a few components just to get at the pump. The shop was an hours drive away, each way, for me.

Called another shop, they could supply a Bosch rebuilt unit, fully tested, for $800. Ok, I paid for it and the unit was delivered bare, not in a box, let alone a Bosch box. There is nothing on the pump indicating it was rebuilt by Bosch. Called the shop this morning and the owner said "but they said it was a Bosch rebuilt unit". From his reaction I am certain that it was not rebuilt by Bosch.

The good news is that the second one worked. The first shop was a good shop in the nineties when the dad was running it and I dealt with him. He has passed away and his two sons are running it. Nice guys, not dishonest or out to cheat anybody but the shop is a filthy mess and the the effort they are putting in is just not adequate to ensure a quality rebuild. They do not have a setup to test rebuilt pumps.

The second shop was just dishonest. When the owner quoted me $800 and I was questioning him on the quality of the rebuild, he assured me it was Bosch rebuilt just to make the sale, when he very well knew it was not.

I wasted an enormous amount of time on this pump and would have been ahead if I had just spent the $1300 for a new pump originally.

Moving onto the wider topic of rebuilt units sold by parts stores, I hear that they are of questionable quality. Cardone especially has a poor reputation. The rebuilding process has been humorously described as akin to dredging up old units from the bottom of a lake and then spraying a coat of paint on them.

The same shenanigans go in the auto repair business. I am glad I do my own work on my truck. It has never darkened the doors of the dealership since it rolled off their lot eleven years ago.

Lots of corners being cut. A honest days work seems foreign to a lot of folks.
 
Last time I looked at a rebuilt (in this case A/C compressor) they didn't even bother cleaning the case properly before painting it. So they painted over dirt. That and the fact that they decided to paint it instead of cleaning it properly was more then enough to keep me from considering it. It's like they aren't even trying!
 
Rebuilt AC compressor is always a huge no-no. Just look at the very temporary warranties on them, and the writing is on the wall.

Rebuilt power steering components are a real tossup. Gotten good results from very competent hydraulic shops.
 
Yeah, pretty much all parts store and online retailer remanufactured stuff is Cardone. It all sucks. Calipers, power steering pumps, steering gearboxes, all garbage. I hate it. I think most alternators/starters are done by bbb industries which is [censored] too. i went through three alternators on my 92 chevy 1500 before i just went back to the original alternator that worked but made a little noise. one was dead, one made noise too, and one had messed up threads so i couldn't even install it.

But it's an industry-wide problem and it's not going to solve itself.

Then again last time I decided to get the new water pump and not the rebuilt one, the new one was defective and the rebuilt one worked long enough to sell the car lol. And other new parts, especially anything Dorman, is trash. Replacement radiators leak 1/2 the time, except that might be due to handling/packaging, you don't wanna know how often we drop them at work or they are sent in on the pallet with heavy stuff on top of them). I can't imagine ordering a radiator online for the same reason. We got a report from a commercial customer they installed our cheapo China house brand ball joint on a Suburban, it cracked a few months after that while the customer was driving in a parking lot. Our company paid the labor claim and guess what went back in, another cheap China part from the same brand. Sure, I just put that same brand cheap stuff on my Suburban for pitman and idler arms, but if/when I need ball joints it's going to get something good.
 
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Originally Posted By: George7941
Lots of corners being cut. A honest days work seems foreign to a lot of folks.

Are most people willing to pay for a quality part? IMO most are only willing when it's new, and on a new vehicle. Everyone else thinks it oughta be free.
 
Quote:
I needed to replace the power steering pump in a Freightliner truck and a new one from Freightliner is $1300. Because of the cost I looked into rebuilt ones.


Something that important and heavy duty I wouldn't hesitate to buy a brand new OEM pump. Of course 2nd shop was lying and had it rebuilt from another company, not Bosch.

Same goes for my cars, I'll spend more money and get a quality brand new parts...
 
It seems like a simple solution. If you are dissatisfied with the quality and/or pricing in the rebuilt market, buy the new part from Freightliner.
 
Got an AC compressor from O Reilly that was rebuilt on 3 different cars and they have all been good. Alhave worked for several summers.
 
The results you got are common in the industry and a lot of it is price-driven.
A few years ago an acquaintance bought a rebuilt starter from a national chain store and decided to keep the core. The store was a good hour away and when he got it home, it didn't fit. He called them up and they told him if he could just change the nose cone on it. After taking it apart, NOTHING had been replaced internally and it wasn't even cleaned up. It still had the old brushes and bushings inside of it and the internals were filty. All it had was new paint on the outside. The only good side to this was that his replacement worked.
Last fall, my brother had a 1970 F600 grain truck that had an alternator fail on it. I had no replacement parts on hand and we needed it replaced on a Sunday afternoon, as harvest was in full swing. I got one from O'Reillys for about $35. The amazing thing was NOT the fact that it was rebuilt in China, but that O'Reillys could ship old alternators to China, have it "rebuilt", ship them back through all the usual channels, only charge $35 for it and make money on it.
 
Originally Posted By: DoubleWasp
Rebuilt AC compressor is always a huge no-no. Just look at the very temporary warranties on them, and the writing is on the wall.


I know. I was in the auto parts store for something else and just wanted to look at the rebuilt A/C compressor out of morbid curiosity.
 
Quote:
The amazing thing was NOT the fact that it was rebuilt in China, but that O'Reillys could ship old alternators to China, have it "rebuilt", ship them back through all the usual channels, only charge $35 for it and make money on it.


Yeah, very scary knowing that it could be shipped to China and back with a profit for only $35


George,
What model Freightliner do you own ?
 
Much of the rebuilt stuff for cars is done in Mexico. A guy at a rebuild shop I have been to says the stuff from Mexico has broken parts replaced. But his shop will replace the diode bridge vs solder in a new diode (Mexico). As an example.

When you get a rebuilt brake caliper, did they polish the piston and pins or replace. Hard to tell with a piston unless you popped it out to examine which no one would do.

Part of the equation is how easy is it to get the part in and out. Brake caliper is pretty easy. The PS pump the OP mentions not so easy.

But from an environmental standpoint we need to rebuild/reuse stuff. Cannot toss everything in the trash.
 
Originally Posted By: Mr Nice


Something that important and heavy duty I wouldn't hesitate to buy a brand new OEM pump. .
exactly!no way should you use a rebuild part on something like a semi truck. You depend on that truck so the only sensible option is new. The rebuilt won't last as long as the OE one did so you will be redoing the job again.
 
Originally Posted By: DoubleWasp
Rebuilt power steering components are a real tossup. Gotten good results from very competent hydraulic shops.

Thank you for that suggestion. It never crossed my mind that hydraulic shops could do it. I deal with a very good hydraulic shop, mostly for rebuilding forklift components and the occasional hydraulic hose for trucks. They are a bit expensive but they do not cut corners. I have never had one of their rebuilt forklift components fail. After I read your post I checked with them and they said they could rebuild this ZF pump. Will try them next time.
http://www.actionhydraulics.ca/
 
Originally Posted By: Mr Nice
Yeah, very scary knowing that it could be shipped to China and back with a profit for only $35


I think it was discussed earlier. It's cheaper to ship a part from China to the US than it is to ship a part from one part of the US to another. It put a lot of eBay businesses out of business because they couldn't compete with the China shipping prices. Some trade agreement makes the shipping to the US from China really low.
 
I don't wrench professional but I've been burned by rebuilds a few times. Almost always Cardone. I replaced the front brakes on a friend's truck and I used remans from O'Reilly - the price was right and the warranty is there. I had to return one of the calipers due to a casting defect - this should have been rejected from the get-go. The other time, I get a PS pump for a Subaru from a local parts house - also a Cardone. It wobbled and almost disintegrated itself. I got a refund and installed a pump from O'Reilly, but this pump was remanned in China but looked better than any of the Mexican ones I got from Cardone.

I had OK luck with Cardone reman calipers.
 
If it's easy to replace and isn't going to leave me stranded if it fails, I'll roll the dice on a cheap no-name/rebuilt whatever. The harder it is to replace and/or the more critical the part is, the more likely I will buy OEM or, at least, the OEM manufactured part (i.e. Hitachi sensors on my Nissans).
 
Originally Posted By: Mr Nice
George,
What model Freightliner do you own ?


The truck is a 2006 Business Class M2 with a Caterpillar C7 engine. Truck has 635000 kms/ 12000 hours. It is easier to justify a $1300 new pump on a newer truck with fewer kms. This truck is part of a small fleet of trucks I take care of for a moving company.
 
Originally Posted By: 28oz
the more likely I will buy OEM or, at least, the OEM manufactured part (i.e. Hitachi sensors on my Nissans).

And that's the nice part about import cars - the OEM suppliers do support the aftermarket to varying degrees - Denso has been making a big push into the aftermarket for the last 10 years. Even some of Denso's First Time Fit products are made in China or even from third parties, I'd trust it. I'd trust a Bosch reman rotating electrical part, but not so much their spark plugs(unless it was in made in Germany and if the car came OEM with them) or wiper blades.
 
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