Brand Names

[DMBParticipant @dmb]

Just thought that I would use another thread for the following rather than go OT elsewhere.

S.O.D., you said that you have a low opinion of them, so how about this –

I once worked for a UK subsidiary of the Singer group in America, who closed the Singer sewing machine factory in Glasgow and flogged off the name to someone in the Far East. Should you come across a 'Singer' shop anywhere in the UK, it will be a franchise run by the shopkeeper.

John

[DMBParticipant @dmb]

[larry phelan 1Participant @larryphelan1]

As the Bard said "What,s in a name?"

I gave up paying attention to any Brand name many moons ago.

Pick any Brand name you like, and ask where are they made, and by who ?

As they say around here "T,is all about money, me boy "

[Peter G. ShawParticipant @peterg-shaw75338]

I might be wrong in this, but my admittedly limited experience is that recognised good quality brand names do indeed give good service. Ok, there will be the occasional dud, but nowadays given the choice between "Jolly Green Giant" (I'm stuck on that name aren't I? Sorry!) or a recognised name, I'll go for the recognised name even if it costs more.

To give some examples, Bosch and Exide batteries as against unknown marques, Bosch washing machine, now in excess of 20 years old, a Mitsubishi TV which was 25 years old and only scrapped because I could not get it to work properly to a DVR (outdated specs.), Toshiba (now Dynabook) laptops, three of which gave very many years of reliable service, etc.

On the other hand there are some marques that are proven to be bad despite supposedly having a good reputation, VW for one, and in my personal opinion, Ford. (It's rather ironic that I've never liked Fords ever since my mother had to "wind up" their Prefect in winter to get it working whilst Morris Minors at work started first pull everytime regardless of the weather and temperature. The Ford I bought, and which proved to be an absolute disaster, was bought because I couldn't find an acceptable alternative.)

As regards where are they made. Well, I tried that out when I bought the present Dynabook laptops. Specifically, I didn't want anything made in China, so when I discovered that Lenovo, who also owned the IBM brand, were made in China, that ruled them out even though there was a model I particularly liked. I then discovered that Toshiba had sold out to Sharp, who in turn renamed them as Dynabook, whilst still retaining the original Toshiba designation, eg. Satellite Pro. I bought a pair expecting them to be Japanese. Not a bit of it – a sticker underneath says "Made in China". I was not happy!

So yes, it's alright attempting to buy according to certain criteria, but it doesn't always work. Which is why, nowadays, I go for the recognised brand names, even if it does cost more. And, for what it's worth, why I was asking in the other thread to which DMB refers about a specific make of tooling.

Cheers,

Peter G. Shaw

[HopperParticipant @hopper]

Trouble is that many once great brand names have been sold off and slapped on cheap junk.

And even prestige brands like BMW have factories in China while others such as Harley Davidson assemble in their home country but most/many parts are made in China.

It's a buyer beware minefield out there.

[Nick Clarke 3Participant @nickclarke3]

Without wishing to upset you Peter I feel that in today's worldwide manufacturing culture that the location of manufacture has little impact on the quality of the item with poor quality and excellent items available from most parts of the globe.

Not buying items made in country X or Y will prevent you accessing good quality stuff as well as the rubbish.

Does price enter into your equation – and if it does how does expensive European manufacture stand up to less expensive Pacific rim goods? Particularly when many famous names now import from there anyway.

[Peter G. ShawParticipant @peterg-shaw75338]

Nick,

My choice to not support China was based purely on politics. I know that we have not been told officially where Covid originated, but to me it's clearly China. Since they won't admit it, then I conciously try to avoid buying stuff manufactured there. It's difficult, I must admit.

Cost, although relevant, was not that important. The Dynabooks I eventually bought were somewhat more expensive than the Lenovo's I fancied.

The other items were bought a long time ago, and were in effect what seemed best at the time. Cost wasn't, and isn't over important to me, certainly not at my age. It's experience as much as anything these days, eg, last year our Bendix double oven failed. Only 25 years old, or thereabouts, but as we had a Bosch washer, a Which recommended buy when we bought it 20 or so years ago and which is still giving good service, we decided to go for a replacement Bosch double oven rather than a repair.

Last year we had a new roof installed. £9600. We used a man who has done work for us before. We didn't bother getting quotes since we know that he is reliable, and does what he says he'll do, on time. We've just had new windows & porch door done by Everest. Ok, at £22K not the cheapest by any means but we've used them before and found them reasonable. Similarly, car servicing, we use a man we've used for the last 27 years. Again, we get good reliable service. And that is an important point for me.

Small items, vacuum cleaners, tv's, DVR's etc, well as long as they work, then fair enough. If it stops working then we'll replace it if doesn't seem easily fixable. But in reality, a lot of them just work, and keep working. My computer printer, an HP Deskjet, is now over 10 years old and, as I found out earlier this year, HP no longer supply ink cartridges for it. It's actually been repaired once by me, but I'll try after market cartridges before replacing it.

That's my philosophy, tempered by experience, plus the "advantage" of old age. That age thing is very important. We don't usually buy "to keep up with the neighbours", or because we fancy it. Instead, for big ticket items, we now only buy for replacement purposes.

I must admit though to being surprised when I bought our Toyota car. I had no idea that it was built in Derbyshire.

Cheers,

Peter G. Shaw

[SillyOldDufferModerator @sillyoldduffer]

Posted by Peter G. Shaw on 15/07/2022 10:17:37:

… Which is why, nowadays, I go for the recognised brand names, even if it does cost more.

But there are no 'recognised brand names'! The value of a brand name depends mostly on the commercial position of the current owner, who can be almost anyone, plus whatever a bunch of customers choose to believe in, which could be nonsense. Lots of fanboys about!

Many reasons why buying by brand name only is unwise:

1. Brands don't mean much once products reach commodity status. Generic aspirin is as good as Beecham's Powder etc. (I suspect older folk may not realise just how many manufactured goods are commodities, not requiring trained men to produce them, and made to any price-point the retailer can sell. Most consumers do not want old-fashioned 'quality'. )
2. Many brands exist to sell overpriced goods and services. To quote the advert, they are 'reassuringly expensive'
3. Brands vary over time. Old-favourites may have become expensively third-rate whilst a previously notorious brand could have sorted it's act out and become inexpensively excellent.
4. Brand reputations depend too much on past glories and lazy purchasers. It's what the product does today that matters, not faded memories or wishful thinking.
5. Many brands are rebadge jobs with no relation to where they were manufactured or by whom or to what specification.
6. 'Quality' can vary within the same brand when it covers products ranging from cheap and cheerful to designed to last.
7. Brands are often counterfeited. If Flash Harry offers you a cheap Rolex in a pub car-park, what could possibly go wrong? Rolex are an excellent brand…

I suggest folk should assume nothing and check.

Recent experience of a reputable supplier is a much better guide. In practice, most stuff I buy, which is generally inexpensive, works out well compared with the upmarket gear my mum trusts. My cheapo oven cooked food as well as her expensive one and lasted a year longer. But my choice looks and feels cheap, whereas hers is drop-dead gorgeous. Although her doors open and close with a satisfying quality clunk, it's three times the price and I'd rather spend my money on something else. Be warned, I dress like a tramp too…

Dave

 

Edited By SillyOldDuffer on 15/07/2022 16:03:19

[BazyleParticipant @bazyle]

The recognised brand name will probably still be trying a bit to maintain their reputation so will test and inspect samples after initially approving the manufacturing line. It is the rejects from that process that may then appear as another brand, or perhaps the same innards in a slightly different plastic case using cheaper parts but off the same primary production line. The typical pcb machine (German made even for Chinese lines) makes 1200 laptop sized whatevers per shift – at least 2 shits per day x7. Not many companies can sell that many all year so will only take say 3 days production per week. The components eg capacitors come off reels loaded at the beginning of the shift so it is just a stores ticket away from being run at the cheaper level.

A few years ago when I was looking to get about 3 million 12v power supplies per year we were offered prices from £2.50 to £7.50 depending on how long we wanted them to last. better capacitors cost more. That's one of the places a cheapo gizmo maker can instantly save.

[pgk pgkParticipant @pgkpgk17461]

I do enjoy a good typo (most of mine are just gobbledygook)
2 shits per day reminds me of a story about 2 physiologists failing to understand each other because one defeacated twice a day and other twice a week.

It's no longer "You get what you pay for" It's "you get what you get conned for". Car insurance is a prime example – no physical object and they should all be working from similar actuarial figures but prices quoted may vary by many multiples from offer to offer

pgk

[DMBParticipant @dmb]

C'mon Dave, spend, spend, spend it!

You can't take it with you so do like me, have anything you want because the more you leave behind, the bigger headache you create for your beneficiaries, working out how to squander what's left!

John

[Peter Cook 6Participant @petercook6]

One of my favourite quotes about money – from George Best

"I spent a lot of money on booze, birds and fast cars. The rest I just squandered."

[Howard LewisParticipant @howardlewis46836]

For MANY years branded products did not exclusively contain "home made" components. Even with the best will in the world.

An engine made in Britain might contain a cylinder block that had been cast in England, Germany, or Brazil.

Into this would go pistons, from Germany, or supposedly made in Britain, but possibly sourced form one of their overseas subsidiaries.

The bearings could have been made in England, Scotland, or even France.

Electrical or fuel system components might well have been overseas sourced for those, or for marketing reasons

(Exactily as Peter says, an avoidance of goods sourced, whollyn or partly from one country, for political reasons. (At the the risk of being political, who would want to buy a Lada, now? );.

In some cases it was cost driven, in other instances that was the only source of supply that could would perform as required and/or deliver the quality and durability required.

This is not new, long before WW2, some Morris cars were powered by Hotchkiss engines, made in France.

The Ford Corsair was powered by a V4 engine designed and probably made by the German Ford subsidiary, Taunus..

VERY difficult to tell the wood from the trees, let alone what breed of timber

Howard

[SamsarandaParticipant @samsaranda]

I am with Peter on buying known and trusted brands of goods, for example look at the Hotpoint saga with tumble dryers bursting into flames, a significant proportion of their product had fires due to poor design. We have a Bosch washing machine and Bosch tumble drier, to date I haven’t heard of any fires with that brand, there may well have been some but statistically the number is probably zero or so low as to be insignifican, there are many more examples of similar problems with cheaper makes. I find Dave’s comments to be very cynical, I am now in my mid seventies and my life experiences have drawn me towards spending my money on quality items and products, like Peter. In respect of shunning all things Chinese because they started Covid, my eldest daughter suffered extreme effects with the virus, it gave her Encaphalitis, Pneumonia and a Stroke along with heart damage, she is still affected and receives constant hospital treatment, the senior consultants that treat her have on more than one occasion stated that they now realise that Covid was created in a laboratory, take from that what you will, I am also very minded to avoid Chinese products whenever I can, but nowadays becoming increasingly difficult to do so. In respect of the comments about rebadging products this is by no means a new phenomenon, I dabble with Stationary engines and within the brands as long ago as 1900 companies were buying engines from a supplier and selling them with their own brand name. Dave W

[File HandleParticipant @filehandle]

Years ago I was able to buy and sell a branded product with our name on instead for 1/10 of the branded price. Sometimes you are paying for the brand name.

[Nick WheelerParticipant @nickwheeler]

Posted by Howard Lewis on 16/07/2022 11:13:20:

The Ford Corsair was powered by a V4 engine designed and probably made by the German Ford subsidiary, Taunus..

VERY difficult to tell the wood from the trees, let alone what breed of timber

The Corsair was powered by a V4 version of Ford UK's Essex engine.

Ford Germany simultaneously produced similar capacity V4 and V6 Cologne engines that share only the basic design ideas, but have no interchangeable components.

[Nick Clarke 3Participant @nickclarke3]

The differences between UK and German V4 and V6 Ford engines were many but basically one was a mirror image of the other. Eventually the German V6 took over and V4s were dropped in this country though whether still used in Germany or by Saab I don't recall.

Edited By Nick Clarke 3 on 16/07/2022 18:08:35

[lee websterParticipant @leewebster72680]

Nobody has ever produced a baked bean to beat Hienz.

30 odd years ago I used to buy Wolf electric drills over B&D, then I found the label on my new wolf said made in Japan. Sigh.

Dr, Who drives round in a British made police box.

[SamsarandaParticipant @samsaranda]

Lee, nowadays Japanese engineering, particularly in motor vehicles is held up as the standard to aim for in production, mainly due to their focus on quality in engineering production. Dave W

[Anonymous]

Posted by lee webster on 16/07/2022 21:41:12:

Nobody has ever produced a baked bean to beat Hienz.

AFAIK Heinz is a US Company if that was your point.

[Howard LewisParticipant @howardlewis46836]

The ironic thing is that Japanese reputation for quality rose from the ashes of their previous reputation when companies started adopting the principles laid down by an American, Deeming.

The spin off is that European manufacturers had to improve to survive.

Many years ago, talking with .someone from our Japan operation he said that a prospective customer walking into a showroom, and seeing a drip tray under a car, would promptly walk out. "We do NOT buy cars that leak oil!" is the attitude.

It always amused me that many dealers offered a year's breakdown insurance with a new car.

"You want me to buy a car that you expect to break down in the first year?"

My son found out the hard and expensive way what happened to a 1600 Beetle if the valves were not changed at what we now regard as not a lot more than service mileage. Stripping the engine, we found that the heads were cracked, as well.

In contrast, we ran two Toyota Yaris. In over 80K miles apart from routine servicing and consumables, (! set of pads,1 set of tyres, and wiper blades ) each needed one brake light bulb.. They were bought because of the reputation for reliability; well founded in our experience.

I could have saved a lot of money on cameras, if i could have afforded to buy a Leica 111F in the early 60s!

I was only happy after buying Canon. (No doubt Nikon or Pentax would have made me as content. Hasselblad was beyond my budget ) A Zenith B was optically good, but failed mechanically. You tend to get what you pay for.

The Leitz designed lens on my Panasonic bridge camera is excellent.

Howard

[Nicholas FarrParticipant @nicholasfarr14254]

Hi. while I respect peoples political decisions as from where their purchases are made, when buying goods that contain electronics and despite which part of the world they may be made in, it is likely that one or many more of the components inside would have been made in China. The thing is, most places in the world have their political objections including the UK.

Regards Nick.

[Mick B1Participant @mickb1]

I'm with SOD on this. I've seen Mitutoyo go from unfairly-despised cheapies in the 70s, to a top brand with its own choir of fanboys and gang of counterfeiters. Nationality-based quality judgement is nothing other than a cloak for prejudice.

You can really only decide on the quality of an item by inspecting it yourself for the quality criteria that bear on your own actual requirements. Sometimes you just have to have to buy without physical inspection and take a chance – and then you win some, you lose some.

[SillyOldDufferModerator @sillyoldduffer]

Posted by Howard Lewis on 17/07/2022 06:20:08:

…

In contrast, we ran two Toyota Yaris. In over 80K miles apart from routine servicing and consumables, (! set of pads,1 set of tyres, and wiper blades ) each needed one brake light bulb.. They were bought because of the reputation for reliability; well founded in our experience.

…

Howard

My dear old dad – a clever chap, with an Engineering job, bought a Yaris for the same reason. Excellent cars in their day, and their reliability compared with most other marques was confirmed over several years by customers, the trade, and motoring organisations. Unfortunately, dad fancied an automatic, and went for a special offer without doing his homework. He bought a version of the Yaris fitted with an unreliable automatic transmission, which I think was eventually withdrawn.

So despite Toyota being a trusted maker, and the Yaris range having a proven track record, buying by brand landed dad with a disappointing car. Pleased with everything apart from the transmission, which made driving easy when working properly, but it frequently misbehaved. Anyone know the details : I suspect the design was flawed, rather than the box being badly made of poor materials?

Rolls Royce have had their share of failures too! Everyone knows about the marvellous Merlin, which not only worked well, but the high-performance design supported many improvements. Power output was boosted repeatedly, and the engine stayed reliable. However, at about the same time RR got into serious difficulty with the Vampire engine. More powerful than the Merlin, but riddled with large and small technical issues, and never reliable. A failure.

I thinks it's much more important to concentrate on evidence than names. Based on Rolls Royce failing to deliver the Vampire, the RAF should have dumped them in 1940. Fortunately, it wasn't the RR brand that mattered, it was the companies overall ability to deliver results, and the RAF knew about the Merlin and other goodies.  All the evidence has to be considered.

I fear humanity is much too fond of accepting simple but wrong answers to complex problems. Why bother painfully extracting extracting knowledge from information, and information from data, when prejudice, beliefs and herd instinct are so easy? I'm in favour of simplification, but done properly it's hard work and must never be taken too far. Let's not simplify our hammers by removing the handle.

In my world there are no sacred cows. Or infallible brand-names. And history shows believing in things despite the evidence always ends badly. Sadly, as a species, we'd rather believe in a comfortable lie than accept an uncomfortable truth.  Fight against it!

Dave

 

 

 

 

 

Edited By SillyOldDuffer on 17/07/2022 10:42:21

[Peter G. ShawParticipant @peterg-shaw75338]

Reputation does have a lot to do with choice. Remember back in the '60's & possibly into the '70's when British motorbikes were unreliable, and leaked oil everywhere? Then along came the Japanese with their reliable leakproof buzz boxes. A passing fad, perhaps. Only the British motorcycle fraternity deserted the British manufacturers in favour of the Japanese! Where are the British manufacturers now? Having said that, I did have a Yamaha SR500 single cylinder, big thumper. Nice machine, too fast for me, but it did have a serious design flaw in that mine did not have any means of lubricating the rear swinging arm pivot with the inevitable result of an expensive repair after a MOT failure.

Similarly, think of the British motorcar industry. Leaky, possibly unreliable although mine were not that bad, not well made. Along came people like VW – remember the original Beetles? You could drive them all day flat out without a problem and without any oil leaks. And so on. Where is the British motorcar industry now?

It wasn't all perfect. I remember Japanese being a byword for being junk. But they realised that, and cleaned up their act, adopting things such as TQM (Total Quality Management) with the result we know today. It's fair to say that my present car, Toyota Avensis 1.8 petrol, 110K miles, 9 years from new, is the best car I've ever owned in every respect. I've had an A35 van (rotbox), Minor 1000 (incurable oil leaks), two Maxis (Oil leaks, suspension problems, clutch failures due to the oil leaks, door rot), VW Beetle (1969 1300 – generally reliable but ultimately body rot), VW Type 3 Fastback Estate (Crap), Peugeot 405 TDI, Focus TDI (fuel filter/clutch/airflow sensor/engine failure/poor tyre life). And the present Toyota? Erm, my wife broke the internal mirror, and the air-con has failed, but well that's it really. Of course, I am discounting what you might consider to be disposable items, eg tyres, brake components, bulbs, normal servicing, exhaust systems, but even here, the Toyota is still winning hands down.

We have two Canon cameras, more point and shoot than SLR, but they work. Actually, the older one has just failed at 16 years old. Before that a Russian Cosmic 35 which literally fell apart after 25 or more years, and a Yashica manual SLR. Nice camera that, but too much messing about to set it up for me.

I've already mentioned elsewhere the Toshiba laptops, now Dynabook. The Tosh's did quite well: the present Dynabooks are too new to say. Our first automatic washer, TricityBendix, lasted 5 years, then fell apart. It's replacement (same make) lasted nearer 15 to 20 years. The current Bosch is over 20 years old. To be fair, the amount of work they did has dropped as the kids left home. In the early years we had TCE (Thorn Consumer Electronics) TV's. Then a Philips 10" colour tv – that ended up as a colour monitor for a Spectrum computer. And then a Mitsubishi 21" tv. 25 years but then wasn't compatible with DVR's.

I could go on, but in reality I'm getting down to small consumer items, items which if they fail, are simply replaced. Most things usually work and work well until outdated, and even then we sometimes can't be bothered – if it works, why waste time and money updating it.

The one thing that does stand out to me is the preponderance of Japanese stuff. Makes one think, doesn't it?

Cheers,

Peter G. Shaw

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