Bilstein B6 = Made in Mexico

[The Critic]

I installed Bilstein B6 (4600) shocks and struts onto a 4th Gen 4Runner.

I thought Bilsteins were Made in Germany. I was a little bit surprised to find Made in Mexico printed on the strut, especially when the box had numerous references to Germany.

When did this change?

 

[Falcon_LS]

Not necessarily. I've got Bilsteins on my Grand Marquis and Envoy, all eight shocks were made in U.S.A.

 

[atikovi]

Nothing wrong with Mexico. Long history of auto parts manufacturing and quality production. Now if it said China...

 

[Trav]

Nothing wrong with China either if the company is producing the product in its own factory with its own QC. Companies like Hilti, Makita, Milwaukee, Nikon, Canon, Hella/ Behr,
and thousands of others are manufacturing product in their own owned factories in China.
Example.

https://www.hilti.group/content/hil...te-information/production-locations.html

http://www.makita.biz/company/abroad.html

 

[PowerSurge]

Originally Posted by Trav
Nothing wrong with China either...



Yeah, ok.

 

[Bjornviken]

Originally Posted by Trav
Nothing wrong with China either if the company is producing the product in its own factory with its own QC. Companies like Hilti, Makita, Milwaukee, Nikon, Canon, Hella/ Behr,
and thousands of others are manufacturing product in their own owned factories in China.
Example.

https://www.hilti.group/content/hil...te-information/production-locations.html

http://www.makita.biz/company/abroad.html


Thats a personal opinion. I have problems with that but sadly almost eveyting is made there.

 

[UncleDave]

Assembled in Mexico using German parts.

UD

 

[atikovi]

Originally Posted by Trav
Nothing wrong with China either if the company is producing the product in its own factory with its own QC.


It's not so much the production as it is the raw materials. No way they analyze the batch of steel, aluminum and rubber that makes the components of a suspension part like they would in the U.S. or EU. And lets face it, the reason companies have factories there is because it's cheaper for them. The old saying, you get what you pay for, still applies. Personally, I bought a pair of Mevotech ball joints that seemed fine, but when I looked at them a month later, they were all rusted through whatever surface coating they had on originally.

 

[Luftmasse]

Originally Posted by The Critic
I installed Bilstein B6 (4600) shocks and struts onto a 4th Gen 4Runner.

I thought Bilsteins were Made in Germany. I was a little bit surprised to find Made in Mexico printed on the strut, especially when the box had numerous references to Germany.

When did this change?


I am really interested in the Bilstein over the KYBs...

Which application was this for and how was the ride?

 

[The Critic]

Originally Posted by painfx
Originally Posted by The Critic
I installed Bilstein B6 (4600) shocks and struts onto a 4th Gen 4Runner.

I thought Bilsteins were Made in Germany. I was a little bit surprised to find Made in Mexico printed on the strut, especially when the box had numerous references to Germany.

When did this change?


I am really interested in the Bilstein over the KYBs...

Which application was this for and how was the ride?

It is a good kind of firm, but firm.

4th gen 4Runner (03-09).

 

[Luftmasse]

Originally Posted by The Critic
Originally Posted by painfx
Originally Posted by The Critic
I installed Bilstein B6 (4600) shocks and struts onto a 4th Gen 4Runner.

I thought Bilsteins were Made in Germany. I was a little bit surprised to find Made in Mexico printed on the strut, especially when the box had numerous references to Germany.

When did this change?


I am really interested in the Bilstein over the KYBs...

Which application was this for and how was the ride?

It is a good kind of firm, but firm.

4th gen 4Runner (03-09).


My next set of shocks will be from Bilstiens. Heard great things about it.

Toyotas suspension are usually soft. Bilstein will definitely help firm things up.

 

[dlundblad]

Either the fronts or rears for my Blazer were Mexican made and the other was US made.

Nice shock and I love the way the truck rides now, but whoever made the fronts made the shock bushings about .100 too long and they wouldn't fit inside the mounts. Had to grind them down. $400 shocks shouldn't have needed this.

 

[nthach]

Originally Posted by dlundblad
Either the fronts or rears for my Blazer were Mexican made and the other was US made.

.

AFAIK, didn't GM install French-made DeCarbon shocks on the ZR2/Z71-spec S/T and C/K(GMT400) platform SUVs? GM was mighty proud of their DeCarbon shocks in ads for the older trucks and Camaros.

Since Bilstein does count Toyota, GM and VW as customers and TRD-package Tundra/Tacomas as well as higher-spec GMTs come with Bilstein shocks, it would make sense for Krupp Bilstein to make shocks in the US and Mexico.

 

[AC1DD]

Originally Posted by nthach
Originally Posted by dlundblad
Either the fronts or rears for my Blazer were Mexican made and the other was US made.

.

AFAIK, didn't GM install French-made DeCarbon shocks on the ZR2/Z71-spec S/T and C/K(GMT400) platform SUVs? GM was mighty proud of their DeCarbon shocks in ads for the older trucks and Camaros.

Since Bilstein does count Toyota, GM and VW as customers and TRD-package Tundra/Tacomas as well as higher-spec GMTs come with Bilstein shocks, it would make sense for Krupp Bilstein to make shocks in the US and Mexico.


This is connected to the NAFTA zone agreements most major tier 1 auto parts vendors do the same thing, not that I'm happy about it. Mexico wages are too low and that gives them an unfair advantage to compete, this is why Trump wanted to get rid of NAFTA.

 

[007]

KYB's are made where?

 

[zmelli]

Originally Posted by 007
KYB's are made where?

Mine were Made in Japan. Both the GR-2 and a set of AGX that I have purchased.

 

[maxdustington]

Originally Posted by Trav
Nothing wrong with China either if the company is producing the product in its own factory with its own QC. Companies like Hilti, Makita, Milwaukee, Nikon, Canon, Hella/ Behr,
and thousands of others are manufacturing product in their own owned factories in China.
Example.

https://www.hilti.group/content/hil...te-information/production-locations.html

http://www.makita.biz/company/abroad.html
Makita makes stuff in the USA, their 5" rat tail grinder and high power 4 1/2" grinder are both made in USA. I get what you are saying, but you are basically making a magic soil argument when you assume that you can transplant a western factory to a third world country and everything will be exactly the same. There is a reason why the labour is cheaper there, and it's not racism or colonialism. You also conveniently left out Dewalt which has a ton of US made tools.

The flagship of a tool line often times will be made somewhere else than the box store black friday junk. It might not be made in USA but made in Taiwan or Eastern Europe, somewhere where the wages and quality are better than the usual suspects.

The winds have changed old man! It's OK to say China makes garbage now that manufacturing is returning to western countries.

EDIT: I just put new Monroe shocks on my car and all of them were made in USA. [censored] Bilstein?

 

[dlundblad]

Originally Posted by maxdustington
Originally Posted by Trav
Nothing wrong with China either if the company is producing the product in its own factory with its own QC. Companies like Hilti, Makita, Milwaukee, Nikon, Canon, Hella/ Behr,
and thousands of others are manufacturing product in their own owned factories in China.
Example.

https://www.hilti.group/content/hil...te-information/production-locations.html

http://www.makita.biz/company/abroad.html
Makita makes stuff in the USA, their 5" rat tail grinder and high power 4 1/2" grinder are both made in USA. I get what you are saying, but you are basically making a magic soil argument when you assume that you can transplant a western factory to a third world country and everything will be exactly the same. There is a reason why the labour is cheaper there, and it's not racism or colonialism. You also conveniently left out Dewalt which has a ton of US made tools.

The flagship of a tool line often times will be made somewhere else than the box store black friday junk. It might not be made in USA but made in Taiwan or Eastern Europe, somewhere where the wages and quality are better than the usual suspects.

The winds have changed old man! It's OK to say China makes garbage now that manufacturing is returning to western countries.

EDIT: I just put new Monroe shocks on my car and all of them were made in USA. [censored] Bilstein?


The Chinese are more than capable of creating (or replicating) quality goods.

The politics behind whether one agrees or not is a completely different discussion.

 

[DGXR]

First, the shock in the picture says "assembled in Mexico" which means that the components were produced and inspected elsewhere, then shipped to Mexico for final assembly. Also, any recently-built factory (regardless of location) will have most of the latest and greatest technologies and processes included. Who would invest in a new facility and then cheap out on the actual production bread-and-butter purpose for that facility to exist? For all we know, Bilstein's Mexico plant may be super modern. It's the older factories with poorly maintained tooling that produce most of the bad parts, also some QC issues in modern plants can produce bad parts. Production and commerce are now global functions. Don't worry about the country of origin.

 

[AC1DD]

Originally Posted by DGXR
First, the shock in the picture says "assembled in Mexico" which means that the components were produced and inspected elsewhere, then shipped to Mexico for final assembly. Also, any recently-built factory (regardless of location) will have most of the latest and greatest technologies and processes included. Who would invest in a new facility and then cheap out on the actual production bread-and-butter purpose for that facility to exist? For all we know, Bilstein's Mexico plant may be super modern. It's the older factories with poorly maintained tooling that produce most of the bad parts, also some QC issues in modern plants can produce bad parts. Production and commerce are now global functions. Don't worry about the country of origin.


Even with new tooling you still have people involved in that production process and poorly trained or poorly paid workers can cause QC issues, fact is that Mexico has less well trained and educated workers and overall they are paid far less than first world nations and usually in poorer nations they work very long hours....

Anyone should be concerned if they are getting parts out of a third world or developing country, even if the plant is fairly new with good equipment.