04GG

iTrader: (33)

THIS ^ Would you buy a grey market harness to go with them? Sorry, but these would be a no-go for me.

OneManArmy

iTrader: (7)

If you are purchasing a grey market seat it is obviously for looks only. If you are foolish enough to think you can do a sanctioned race event in one you're... well... foolish. And you'll be turned around.

But 95% of people that you see with bucket seats and harnesses in their car are for looks only. So who cares if they're certified. None of these seats are going to be as safe for daily driving as your stock seat is (airbags).

I think it's crappy that people are allowed to get away with straight rip offs but how many of you are driving around on Rota's? I don't see you guys talking **** about rotas. The only difference is rota isn't slapping gram light or advan stickers on their wheels.... some people do. But they don't. Does it mean it's not a good wheel? Not necessarily. I've run them and like them.

Some of these knock of seats are great for what they are meant to be... a nice looking comfortable bucket seat for a daily driven car. If you are going to the track hopefully you know enough about certifications and dates on your safety equipment to know better. Some of the seats are POS and will kill you if you get rear ended so I'm not saying to run out and buy them by any means. I just think it's funny that people get all raged when someone buys a knock of an over priced bride seat while they're driving around on knock of wheels.

04GG

iTrader: (33)

I am not a fan of Rotas and yes, pretty much every model is a knock off of something else. That doesn't mean they aren't good rims. I might roll on them for a DD though.

Rims are different than seats too. If you get in an accident on the street and the seat fails to hold up and causes you additional injury, that's still not going to fly with me. Doesn't have to be at the track to be a problem and I just don't trust something like that.

LifePlaza

yes and no

There are numerous copies of seats manufactured in China/Taiwan and sold to the gray market.


There are also China/Taiwan companies that these actual companies (Bride, Sparco, OMP, etc) reached out for outsourcing manufacturing but didn't exactly pass the final approval of use. So these companies will back door them to other markets. I have seen some with an FIA certification however it didn't pass the final QC due to the material used in stitching the company logo

OneManArmy

iTrader: (7)

Essentially what happens with a lot of these companies is it's cheaper to have them manufactured in china so they send them there for manufacturing. There are no copy right laws in china so the facilities that manufacture them use the plans to make their own seats to sell much cheaper. Often times the copies are as good or even better than the originals. Sometimes they're much much worse. This happens in all industries and it just blows me away that no one seems to care enough to stop it.

OneManArmy

iTrader: (7)

Apparently you've never seen a knock off wheel explode before.

And the premise of the situation is NO different.

hwob90

iTrader: (24)

From regular driving your knock off wheels aren't going to explode. If you hit something or get hit whether its real or fake its going to break. I had a set of rotas and hit black ice and blapped a curb around 35mph and it still only broke part of the lip and still held air safely to at least get me home. Ill buy fake wheels any day. Seats on the other hand are a no go for me as well. Last thing I want to do is get T-boned or Rear Ended and I end up being paralyzed due to the seat structure.

LifePlaza

yup pretty much spot on. I'm not going to to name the company I used to work for but we took this route, pretty much shot ourselves in the foot and eventually had to drop our prices to match the the overseas counterpart even though we did all the r&d but decided to seek manufacturing overseas because it was too expensive to do it here in the states.

The parts we r&d eventually have come back now to the US market under a different name and a different company sells them

But back to the seats on CL. It looks like it has an FIA manufacturing date on them. If the op does occasional track days and daily cruising. I don't really see a problem with the seat.

If the op was doing competitive driving as in w2w and holds a comp license, then the op wouldn't be driving their car on the street as it is a dedicated race car. If you make enough money to build and race a dedicated race car, then you would have the money to buy a proper seat.

huck

iTrader: (25)

****, you folks took me seriously. I'm well aware what grey market and black market Chinese merch is. Several of my toys hav ended up in the Hong Kong toy alley. I'd never run these, was more surprised to see them posted so blatantly on CL. They're death traps.

Although, I might consider one for my wheel/pedal gaming rig.

hwob90

iTrader: (24)

Thats a good idea too. I thought of making garage seating. Kind of like a bench. Haha

04GG

iTrader: (33)

I have, but not on the street, and not in person. I have seen the same with OEM wheels though.

Has nothing to do with caring. The companies that do this DON'T FOLLOW REGULATIONS, so you can't enforce something they don't follow anyway. If it could be stopped, it would have been stopped a long time ago. Blemishes and such aren't the same thing as knock offs.

Four vs Two

iTrader: (3)

I don't think LIC or GST would run Rotas on the track if they thought there was any possibility of them exploding.

OneManArmy

iTrader: (7)

You are missing my point completely.

My point is not that Rota's suck. In fact I specifically said so. The point is that people buying knock off seats get blasted, people buying knock off wheels do not. In fact, I think Rota makes the best product for the dollar on the market. I have run Rota, BBS and Gram Light on my car. I'd be happy to run another set of Rota's on my car.


The fact is that there are good and bad knock offs. All in theory are bad and should not be supported but that's besides the point.

I didn't say "you've apparently never seen a rota explode" I believe I said KNOCK OFF WHEEL.

And yes I have seen failures that have been beyond the norm. I've also seen knock off mtb frames snap at the welds and damn near kill people. But I've also seen knock of wheels take a beating and keep on ticking. Same with frames. I've seen custom built high dollar carbon fiber frames literally explode and I've seen knock of chinese frames get slammed and not be effected at all.

I am completely aware of what GST and Lic and in fact a large percentage of time attacks team run. Rota makes a killer wheel.... and for GST and other they make a completely custom spec wheel. That's friggin rad.


So am I saying go out and buy a crapping chinese seat... hell no. In fact, I already said that. What I am saying is that you guys are ****ing hypocrites. Is that simple enough?


I sware man do you people ever read?

OneManArmy

iTrader: (7)

That's my point... there are good and bad original products and good and bad knock of versions of the same products. And this is for ALL industries. Take for example a purse... there are knock off everywhere... some of them are damn good and actually sewn better than the originals.


And you're absolutely right about not following regulations but a huge part of it is our politicians turning blind eye. We buy **** tons of chinese **** but don't force them to purchase our stuff. That creates a need for their **** and we world wide turn blind eye to what's going on to get it instead of forcing them to sell their stuff with the same taxes and quality/safety standards as everyone else. If we did that their stuff would be the same as our stuff and maybe we wouldn't be in quite a big a **** hole as we are now. Now we're used to paying $35 for a dvd player. Why the hell would be pay $400 for one made somewhere else. Same goes with outsourcings. If politicians would man up and start taxing this ****, it wouldn't be happening.

But instead we support cheap as chinese products and other things of the like. Instead of paying an extra $10 for a part at our local shop we buy one from some drop ship company in someone's basement.

Supply demand. Almighty dollar.

04GG

iTrader: (33)

Heck, I don't even buy a lot of the stuff at the local auto parts places because they are "generics". Some things are OK like wiper blades and crap like that, but any critical parts I need: I want OEM or an aftermarket that is known to be better than OEM.

I buy a lot of stuff online simply because it is easy, but I will opt for quality over cheap 9 times out of 10. I WILL pay more for a quality product, period. I don't care if it costs a little more if it lasts longer than an sub-par knock off.

This thread went WAAAAAAY off the deep end, but it is still good stuff to put out there IMO.