| Fakes, flooding the market... |
Posted On : July-16-2010 By : Nicko
So you've just busted your ass for a month to afford shiny new anodised parts for your car and lived on mi-goreng noodles to help save every penny possible. The postie shows up and your hard earned (and well deserved) parts are in your hot little hands... You spend the best part of a week under the car in an effort to have it ready for the track.
So you line up for your run, what happens next is less an issue of skill or talent... It is an issue of - "I purchased my (genuine) parts from a reputable supplier" or the (more and more common) "Why spend $1000 for something you can get for $250 off ebay".
So this is the part where the hero (or noob) of our story comes home with the trophy, or comes home on the back of a towtruck...or lets seriously hope the less likely "body bag" option.
All of this has come from a thread that was posted in an effort to work out whether some "cheap" Cusco branded parts were the real deal or not. Sadly, not everyone is always wise enough to ask for some second opinions before hitting the "Buy it Now" button...
I would like to make it crystal clear that whilst 75% of what comes out of China is a grey-import that can come direct from the factory and just as good as the "store bought" item... a lot of the rest of the stuff from China is a sad tale of scams and fakes and is just going to end up in the junk.
Now with online forums and "importers" and "resellers" so prevalent in our community, it has never been a better time to re-iterate the famous phhrases : "BUYER BEWARE" and "IF IT IS TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE, THEN IT PROBABLY IS".
And with the level of detail in counterfeit parts now, without having a real item and a fake side by side, it would be virtually impossible to even know what you've got yourself into. And lets hope that it isn't too late when you find out that safety items (harnesses, seats, suspension, rollcages brakes etc) aren't up to the task.
Without rabbiting on a lot about this issue, I will leave you with some images and links to do some further reading. And as a few of our members ahve already found out - as simple as posting a thread is, it is MUCH better to look naieve in retrospect than to purchase a counterfeit. Full stop!
The best way to stop these things from flooding the market is BUY GENUINE. It is as simple as that. If there wasn't a market for cheap counterfeits, and the people stupid enough to pruchase them, there wouldn't be a problem in the first place...
Our Discussion thread on fakes and what to keep an eye out on can be found here.
Some Examples :
Takata Harnesses http://www.honda-tech.com/showthread.php?t=2451342
BOSCH FUEL PUMPS
TOMEI FUEL PRESSURE REGULATORS http://www.tomeipowered.com/BTE/index.php/2010/06/23/warning-chinese-made-copies-of-tomei-fuel-pressure-regulators/
BRIDE WEBSITE FAKES & COUNTERFEITS LINK (In Japanese) [URL="http://www.bride-jp.com/info_copy_m.html"][/URL]http://www.bride-jp.com/info_copy_m.html
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| Replies: 6 (view thread) |
| AE86DC on facebook |
Posted On : May-15-2010 By : Nicko
Just a reminder that we do have a facebook group for our members which has been around for a while.
(clicky)
We will try and keep it a bit more up to date from now on...
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| Replies: 1 (view thread) |
| Baby FT86 - Knee Jerk or all lies? |
Posted On : May-13-2010 By : Nicko
Ever since Toyota was rumoured to be releasing a modern design based around a Toyota Chassis and Subaru Boxer engine, the critics and fanboys have been on a mission to pick the car apart and tell the world that it is an unforgivable combination.
Discussion has been very up and down on our own forums in relation to the "Toy-baru" subject. The thread can be followed here
However, some of us still think that it is a fantastic fusion of a torquey, low center of gravity engine capable of being "hotted up" and being the next best Toyota since rear wheel drives were pretty much dumped in the mid to late 1980's...
One of the bone of contention has been that Toyota have been unable to confirm that the rumoured $20,000 pricetag will be able to be kept intact and if the current rumours are to be believed, Toyota will be making a "Baby FT86" or to the rest of us, a more "no frills" and mildly-tuned version of the FT86 to keep the pricing down around the $20K mark like we have been hearing. Meanwhile the full-blown FT86 will be up around the $30K mark.
Update : The Baby FT86 may be 300mm shorter compared to its bigger sister, and also is rumoured to potentially be sporting the toyota 3SZ-VE engine, a 1.5-liter inline-4 that produces 109 bhp.
Whatever happens, some of us are waiting patiently to see what design is revealed for the Australian market, since the AE86 has such a huge following, it won't be long until the modding begins... We are waiting to see.
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| Replies: 35 (view thread) |
| Live Ebisu Webcam |
Posted On : May-10-2010 By : Nicko
Originally spotted by Klutch, here is the original forums discussion thread
Check out this cool live webcam on Japan's Ebisu circuit!
Sadly we have already missed the AE86s lapping around there from the recent Matsuri, but it looks like it is well worth keeping an eye on anyway. Enjoy. |
| Replies: 4 (view thread) |
| Follow AE86DC on Twitter |
Posted On : May-05-2010 By : Nicko
AE86DC is now on twitter... Click the image above to follow us! |
| Replies: 1 (view thread) |
| 2010 Hoodies, presale. |
Posted On : April-28-2010 By : Nicko
2010 Hoodies on sale now :)
To order, please click this link |
| Replies: 151 (view thread) |
| Can't Log In? |
Posted On : April-15-2010 By : Nicko
If you have recently changed your password or email address, you may have gotten a message saying you haven't entered your username / password correctly.
To fix this, please use the password recovery form to change your password again.
Once you have completed this process, you should be able to log in again.
Thanks |
| Replies: 0 (view thread) |
| New Homepage |
Posted On : April-09-2010 By : Nicko
Just a quick update to let you know that the homepage of AE86DC isn't broken... It is under construction and shortly news posts made on the forums will be displayed directly on the homepage.
We are hoping to have the basics of the homepage sorted out by the end of this weekend.
Thanks :) |
| Replies: 1 (view thread) |
| New Admins |
Posted On : March-08-2010 By : Nicko
Please welcome, to the AE86DC Administration team :
Silver Styler (Jon)
and
70XIN (Seamus)
Many more changes will be happening to AE86DC over the next couple of months and we will be keeping everyone updated from now on with all changes with as much notice as possible.
Tonight we held a quick meeting to discuss the future of AE86DC and we have a few things planned that will be revealed shortly.
Thanks guys for your assistance in keeping AE86DC real. |
| Replies: 18 (view thread) |
| Site Sponsors Required |
Posted On : March-04-2010 By : Nicko
Two site-sponsor positions are currently available.
Site sponsorship keeps the AE86DC webserver online and kicking.
Please PM me if you are interested.
Thanks
Nick |
| Replies: 0 (view thread) |
| New feature - Name and Shame |
Posted On : March-01-2010 By : Nicko
Name and Shame now active
For shonky traders.
[URL]http://www.ae86drivingclub.com.au/forums/showthread.php?15826[/URL]
That is all |
| Replies: 1 (view thread) |
| Forums Upgrade |
Posted On : March-01-2010 By : Nicko
Another patch has been released for vBulletin and we will be upgrading starting at 9:45am AEST
This may affect users for up to 30 minutes.
There will also be an upgrade to version 4 of vBulletin forums which we haven't tried yet so there may be some drastic changes to features and functionality.
If you experience any problems, please post up in the bug tracker forum.
Thanks for your patience.
Nick |
| Replies: 55 (view thread) |
