:yeahthat:

Steve148 said:

To be fair, the supplier didn't specifically mention brake pads. He just said that 20,000 miles was a reasonable service life for the quality of parts supplied by his company (shop4parts). I extrapolated from this that it would be necessary to change them at 15,000 miles to avoid a catastrophic failure.

It is a very disappointing stance, especially from a supplier I had previously recommended here as trustworthy.

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Sounds to me like s4p have shot themselves in the foot here. my only experience with them when they supplied a 5 year old auxillary belt and saw nothing wrong with that (the production date was on the package). I go elsewhere now.

gadge said:

If you were to change your ball joints at 15'000 it would mean you'ld have to do it nealy every year? and that can't be right surely?

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I don't think it's right, but unless I waste a load of time on legal action and expert reports I'm stuck with the response from shop4parts : "this is the kind of life expectancy for an aftermarket product".

Like 850kd, I'll just learn my lesson and avoid them in future. If I want to buy second-rate pattern parts that will fail quickly, I can choose from hundreds of vendors on eBay.

Useful thread this Steve

Thanks to your warning I'm getting TRW parts as otherwise I'd most likely have naively bought the cheapest on eBay.

I've just replaced both wishbones the other week, I bought mine from s4p and can't remember the brand the parts were, either Birth or Lemforder I think. My Stilo hit 130k miles before the drivers side rear wishbone bush went on it. The other side was still in perfect condition. It would seem that it'd be a bit optimistic of me to expect the same 130k life out of these new parts, I hope they last more than 20k though, that's a years driving for me, maybe less!

I'm just having to replace an Original Birth wishbone which has only lasted about 14 months and 25,000 miles. Seems to be exactly the same problem as other people in this thread with the ball joint suffering from excessive play.

As a side note most of my miles are on motorways.

I also bought this wishbone from Shop4parts. Really unhappy with the quality of this part, other parts I've bought from Shop4parts have been really good.

just for a bit of balance - i had two lower wishbones fail on the rubber bush last year from euro car parts, the first one lasted a few months then i exchanged it for the same part, that lasted a couple of weeks (both times i got severe brake shudder), in the end i put down a few quid more (£10-15 if memory serves) and got a birth (i think thats the name) and its been on there ever since (35k miles since change),
i gave them both the once over last week when changing my suspension both the arms are fine atm.
it is wise to invest in a slightly more expensive named part from my experiance, these companys have reputations to uphold thus they put thier name on the items.
saying that though i did have a 1 year old bosch batttery fail last month only after 9 months use so even the best have issues sometimes.

yeah you get what you pay for... i hear this same story of inferior parts over and over and over again. although people have different experiences from the same manufacturer of a part i dont think it detracts from the majority of certain parts from certain manufacturers are just not fit for purpose... i replace 2 ARB drop links that i got from Andrew Page back in march... i noticed 2 months ago that all 4 balljoints were destroyed and ive done barely 3,000 miles on them (a majority being motorway). i have returned them and paid the extra few pounds for the extra quality although it fails me which ones i have installed at the moment.

i will now only buy decent stuff.
MANN for filters (Mercedes car, van and commercial use MANN for OEM as do MAN, Volvo, Renault and Scania)
Valeo or LuK for cluches (given the choice LuK)
Phillips, PIAA, Hella or Lucas bulbs
NGK for spark plugs (i know this is more a preference thing but ive had bad experiences with both Bosch and Denso units)
Bosch for sensors
Brembo, EBC or Pagid for brakes
Gates/Continental/SKF for belts
SKF or INA for bearings
i have as of yet had to replace major suspension units but when i do ill be looking into reputable suppliers.

if i can afford dealer i will buy dealer and sometimes it even works out cheaper than anywhere else! ive been recently quoted upwards of £15 for a coolant cap for a stilo, i couldnt get it any lower than about £15.30 Fiat are £13!!!

i work in main dealer and we dont see a lot of older vehicles but when we do you can tell a non genuine/inferior part a mile away. just my 2p sorry for waffling

roy lovelock said:

just for a bit of balance - i had two lower wishbones fail on the rubber bush last year from euro car parts, the first one lasted a few months then i exchanged it for the same part, that lasted a couple of weeks (both times i got severe brake shudder), in the end i put down a few quid more (£10-15 if memory serves) and got a birth (i think thats the name) and its been on there ever since (35k miles since change),
i gave them both the once over last week when changing my suspension both the arms are fine atm.
it is wise to invest in a slightly more expensive named part from my experiance, these companys have reputations to uphold thus they put thier name on the items.
saying that though i did have a 1 year old bosch batttery fail last month only after 9 months use so even the best have issues sometimes.

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Absolutely agree with this, I actually replaced both wishbones in the past at the same time and the nearside one is absolutely fine with no hint of play, it's just a shame the offside one gave up after so few miles.

I suppose it could have just been that I ended up getting a bad one.