Death by China....AliExpress

[Jet55]

If you have never seen the documentary Death by China it is a fascinating watch. With that said, in the past six or seven months of ownership I have bought the usual stuff from Amazon and our supporting vendors. Mudflaps, interior storage, rear bumper guards, dylink, seat covers and the like. The only things I have not purchased yet are running boards, roof rack, a wrap(not sure I am wrapping,) Molle panels and a light bar. While searching for a bigger head unit for my plow truck I stumbled upon AliExpress. On a whim, I typed in Cybertruck. 34 pages later I ended up with a set of four roof racks at an insane price, some interior crap and a CT baseball hat for a whopping .99 cents! If you dont mind giving your mothers maiden name, date of birth, cc info and city where you grew up its a fascinating rabbit hole to go down if you have a few hours to kill. My shopping was a little interesting because for some reason everything was in spanish and mi habla espanol es no bueno.

The pricing is so intriguing I am tempted to reorder everything I have purchased already and do a side by side comparison. Wish me luck, my credit card/Paypal is probably already hacked!

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[JUSTICEQD]

Good Luck!

yeah, it is hit or miss. A couple guys I know ordered Uniden R8s from there being it is about 200 less than retail (unless you were able to get the woot deal yesterday). At any rate, one received a NIB version that matched my retail unit, packaging, etc. The other received an r8 that wouldn't even power on and was required to do return shipping to China at THEIR expense. The packaging also looked like a knock off.

Related note not like some of these sponsors items/posts are required to follow the market place rules of dated pics showing item in hand and forum handle

 

[Jet55]

Damnit, I forgot their return policy Thankfully the only thing that may need tweaking are the roof racks. Unfortunately almost everything we buy comes from China or has "Chinese Guts." My swimspa which I bought from a company in Kansas.....China. My sauna, purchased from a company in Illinois.... China. My GE two year old GE fridge, which I need to replace a cooling fan, China. My GE dishwasher which has cooked four heating elements in three years.... China.
On the other hand, every hand tool or major mechanical part I buy or own was manufactured in the Us or Germany.

 

[devdrone6]

I would always be a little wary of purchasing electronics from temu or aliexpress. I gave up on Temu after trying them once, everything I got felt like crap. Never ordered from Aliexpress. At least from Amazon you have recourse if something is not right.

Regarding everything made in china, unfortunately we like to pretend and feel good about having our products as long as the manufacturing happens somewhere else that is not seen by us. We just want the nice product without having to worry about what goes into it. So everything is made in China and almost nothing in the USA.

I said we because I see my hypocritical ass in the same bucket because I'll spend 100k on a CT, but can't stomach to purchase a damn silicone mat for it that is made in the USA but costs 20 bucks more. [Rant and virtual self immolation done for day]

 

[Deleted member 17810]

Spoiler

Some of these products from the vendors here are those same things

 

[Florida]

We lack the raw materials and machinery for most automotive manufacturing in North America. For example silicone compression molding large parts such as automotive interior mats requires extremely large presses that cannot be found outside of China. ??

 

[devdrone6]

Spoiler

Some of these products from the vendors here are those same things

Yup, almost all of them.

 

[REM]

I would never buy anything like a roof rack from a chinese bootleg store. They make them so cheaply because they don't have to answer to you for damages when buckles and destroys half your cargo and cracks/scratches your glass.

China also uses tons of super toxic stuff because they have next to zero regulation on health and safety. To each his own. I'd rather support my fellow small businesses right here in our own country.

 

[Jet55]

Not to crap on your made in the USA birthday cake, but everything you have bought for your CT or any other car aftermarket, Came from China. The PPF cut here in the US, China, the non Tesla floormats, except for Weathertech, China, your running boards, China.

I should be quiet now, my Chinese robot vacuum is recording all this

 

[devdrone6]

There are companies that make these products in the US, however not much for cybertrucks yet. Tsportline and UP comes to mind on the forums here. But not sure how much of their stuff is US made either.

 

[DJAlan2000]

We lack the raw materials and machinery for most automotive manufacturing in North America. For example silicone compression molding large parts such as automotive interior mats requires extremely large presses that cannot be found outside of China. ??

Not because they aren't available (machinery)... Ajax/Erie Press makes presses for automotive industry and they make all kinds and all sizes...

Here's one that could probably make mats:
https://ajaxerie.com/compression-molding/

Of course that's just ONE company (my uncle worked there in the 50's - 70's), but they know 'auto'...

So, it's not because businesses CAN'T get the equipment... It's more likely that it's the costs of 'labor' to run them...

So yes, the presses ARE 'found outside of China'...

 

[Florida]

Cost prohibitive reasoning is sound reasoning and is backing for a lack of availability within the U.S. ????? whoooohoooooo

 

[Crissa]

US products can be crap, too. There's just more of them.

??‍

-Crissa

 

[TwiztOG43]

I would never buy anything like a roof rack from a chinese bootleg store. They make them so cheaply because they don't have to answer to you for damages when buckles and destroys half your cargo and cracks/scratches your glass.

China also uses tons of super toxic stuff because they have next to zero regulation on health and safety. To each his own. I'd rather support my fellow small businesses right here in our own country.

Have you seen all of these site sponsors such as evbase, Tesslaunch, cybergearco, tesstudio? Look at their running boards. They’re all the same, selling for 650-1000.

The same ones on Alibaba are $300. Only difference they require a minimum quality of at least 2 and of course shipping costs.

The reality is that majority of the accessories or parts you buy are made in China and resold in the US, or made in the US but copied in China eventually at a much cheaper price.

 

[FarAway]

I used to spend a lot of time in China for work. Visited many cites. I like the country and the people on the street. Generally, I found the average person to be just like Americans, they are simply working stiffs with a family simply trying to keep it together. BTW, there you work or you don't eat, everyone works.

Shopping there, I saw many items that appeared identical to name brand products sold in the USA, but for a fraction of the cost. I learned about "seconds". Not second quality, but from a second shift. If a US company ordered 10,000 units of a widget, boom, done. Then an additional identical 10,000 units were manufactured by a second shift and went out the backdoor as bootleg items to be sold at a fraction of the cost of the originals. Almost pure profit to the factory. Sometimes corners are cut on the "knockoffs", but often times they are identical and made with the same materials that were "left over" from the previous run.
Caveat emptor

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