saint_foo

Dunno if this is the right forum, but from NASIOC:

Garrett Turbos...The end of a quality product - NASIOC


As posted by a supposed Garrett employee, 'mbtech' on NASIOC.

Here's the meat and potatoes from his post:

I work at Garrett Turbos, now called Honeywell Turbo Technologies which there so proud of. When Cliff Garrett Owned Garrett He used to brown bag his lunch everyday and cared for a quality Product. If he knew what Honeywell has done now he would turn over in his grave. Honeywell bought Garrett In 1998 or 1999. After this they opened up a turbo testing lab in shanghai China and quickly moved there turbo overhaul to Mexicali Mexico, quickly after Garrett overhaul went belly-up. So they moved there whole production to Mexicali Mexico, as if that first failure was not a sign.

Garrett Turbos made a quality product for a fair price. A turbo is a precision instrument. Garrett turbos was part of Garrett Air Research (on 190th st. In Torrance ca.) Where they have a huge facility designing turbine engines, and so on. Most of the senior technicians in our main turbo facility (Lomita Blvd Torrance ca) came from our air research. If you’re building jet engines a turbo is not all that difficult. Well Cliff Garrett dies. At that time ALL production of Garrett Turbos was at Lomita Torrance ca. Also all engineering and research was there as well. After we were bought and production was sent to Mexico to save costs. Our production numbers doubled. And cost was cut in half our failure rate tripled. Well who cares Honeywell is making money and lots of it. Turbos are considered Honeywell’s golden egg. They feel that turbos are going to take over big. Which it already has in the diesel market. We make ford diesel turbos, daf, Chevrolet, some Audi, vw, fiat, Perkins. Millions of turbos. And there now all coming from china and Mexico. Well up until lately the company figured if the product was designed in the US and assembled in Mexico we would be ok. Well to further there profit and **** the customer once again....the LAST of what makes turbo American leaves in January 2011. We will close the doors to the Torrance Lab. In Torrance we did all our racing turbos (wrc stuff, Audi racing etc..) then in the garret garage we did the turbos you people buy for your Subaru’s. Actually I take that back. They take turbos that were made on a production line somewhere else in the world, and change a couple of parts on a bench in Torrance (wheels, housing..etc) and send it to you the customer saying it was made in the us.....no it was not it was just repackaged and altered a little. Well as of Jan 2011 all your turbos will be made in Mexico or china or Czech Republic. This is the last Garrett facility in the United States.

We have huge law suits pending due to turbo failures. GM is probably going to leave us.... ford has already sued us. Caterpillar has one of the largest recalls in garret history in the process. Our name is becoming ****. The last few VERY smart guys left in the company are being fired to save costs, but see our profit is already good.....they just want more. Please don’t spend 1500$ on a gt35r. Now that it’s costing Honeywell less to build turbos do you think you will see a smaller bill when you order there product? NO!. They are going to charge you even more for even less. There are countless procedures that are being terminated everyday that made our turbos THE BEST. They keep cutting corner after corner. Did you know that we shave metal off our turbine and compressor housings until they are at the EXTREME minimum needed to contain in the event of failure they are shaving every nickel off the cost of a turbo. Did you know that 2000$ gt40 you buy is all mark up. I won’t dare say the actual cost to the company in fear of a lawsuit but lets just say your sales tax is more then the production cost.

Do not buy these turbos. BorgWarner and mitsu are trying there best to compete with us making a quality product. Honeywell is using its big name to back junky turbos Like Toyota is starting to do. I guarantee in the next 8 months you will see a huge decline in quality. All designing and production is in CHINA AND MEXICO. Honeywell is taking back all there benefits they used to supply us with as employees. That way when they lay us off its as cheap as possible. Instead of saying "Well after we take a hit laying those people off we will make tons" they are just taking back all there benefits so they walk away clean and clear. We used to get a severance package. Which they just took away. One of the head engineers involved in the t3 project. (Designing the first t3) he is still with our company. he was supposed to get 44 weeks of pay if he ever got layed off (30 days and 1 week for every year with the company. 40 years with the company)Due to the new Honeywell rules he gets only 16 weeks pay they stole all that pack after promising it to him for 40 years. My fingers and about to fall off typing all this and I am heated so I don’t care about grammar I’m concerned about you people not supporting a **** company. Take your business elsewhere. Somewhere where you will get what your money pays for. Have a nice day and don’t forget if you hear the name HTT Honeywell Turbo Technologies Stay away

(They still use the garret stamp on the turbos)

wayne_curr

iTrader: (8)

I have a buddy who does supply chain management for them. I'm going to try and get some clarification.

Sentic

iTrader: (1)

Suddenly it doesn't feel bad to go with chinachargers.
If this is true that is.

hustler

iTrader: (6)

If this is true, hopefully someone in America is making a quality turbo that bolts-up to the TiAL housing. I usually don't believe people who don't understand they're, there, and their.

FRT_Fun

iTrader: (19)

Good information, although his use of 'there', 'they're' and 'their' was killing me.

Braineack

iTrader: (62)

no wonder all these copies have come to the market, they really are direct copies form the orginials. my ebay turbo has all the airesearch logos on the CHRA.

inferno94

iTrader: (2)

Am I missing something? My 2560 says made in Japan on the CHRA, Japan /= Mexico or China.

Sparetire

There is a pretty big backlash against production in mexico right now among a lot of companies. Shurflo (lots of water/meth pumps) has been nose-diving for some time partially due to quality problems, and all the major water/meth companies dont use them anymore.

Execs are usually quick to champion some new thing that saves massive $ and makes them look good to the board, but as soon as the lack of quality starts causing massive (and sometimes irreperable) damage, those same execs will become the champions of quality and USA production or at least Japan and Taiwan as opposed to Bangladesh, China, and Mexico.

I take the whole thing with a grain of salt, but I have no trouble acknowledging the possibility of it being true.

Braineack

iTrader: (62)

lets see what JKav has to say.

Faeflora

iTrader: (2)

Interesting. Let's not be racist liuttle bastards here though ok? Just because a product is made in mexico or china doesn't mean it suicks. Four times the failure rate may not be that big a deal if the original failure rate was in the thousandths range. Companies treating their emnployees like **** is nothing neww and it's a very american tactic. My takeaway from this article is to try a china gt35 when I upgrade. As for the whole natioalism bullshit I would prefer it if my country was an engineering/technology superpower, not a manufacturing/assembly superpower. Maybe if the recession keeps getting worse all the laid off autoworkers/factory workers will move to mexico to get a job. That isn't necessarily bad. That is just the country evolving. If every country in the world corresponded to a star trek race, the usa would be the motherfuckin ferengi. I got garrent turbie becus of the name but thanbks for opening my mind to global options mr disgruntled. All that aside, I'm curious about the turbohe quality opinions from the real experts we have lurking around here. Beep beep paging all enguneers ...

Doppelgänger

iTrader: (12)

Hey dipshit.... when did Mexico and Chine become a RACE.

Oh and stop drinking before typing...drunk typing is only acceptable when it's funny for everyone reading it.

Jeff_Ciesielski

iTrader: (10)

I read his post and thought to myself "One of us is drunk, and I'm still at work, so..."

curly

iTrader: (25)

That post depresses me greatly. It and most of the comments in this thread describe to a T what is happening at my company. Lots of employees with lots of experience getting paid next to nothing because people judge them for not knowing the difference between there, they're, and their. I am leaving the manufacturing field for the medical field soon, and will hopefully not look back.

faeflora, yes we could go to Mexico, where we will be paid what exactly? A decent Journeyman wage is somewhere around $20-25/hr. I'm not really sure since I only have experience at one place, but I do know we're very low at $20.50 for journeyman. This economy screwed me, as I was told I would get journeyman after I did a few specific things, one being as simple as bringing in my own tool box. I completed all those tasks right as the economy tanked, and have been stuck at $16/hr since April of '08. I work my *** off, they have laid off everyone that was previously helping me (making me work even harder), and I have had no compensation. No cost of living raise, nothing. We're hiring back more employees, we're buying new machines, we're picking up new orders, still nothing. The cost cutting measures ignorant management try to implement (anyone see "Undercover Boss?") are wrong and poorly planned for many reasons. For the first 5 years at this company I have 2 weeks paid vacation, which counts for everything and anything, sick, family emergency, and of course vacation.

I am sorry for yet another rant in this thread, but I wanted to get it off my chest as I just had yet another bad day. I'm both glad and pissed I'm leaving. Glad I'm leaving, pissed it's taken me this long to realize how bad it is and to find another plan.

yunvmyegt

iTrader: (3)

this makes the holset hx35w's look a little more appealing now...

Faeflora

iTrader: (2)

**** you I was sober and that post was empowered by blackberry. doppeganger you are the master of the drunk post and you are probably drunk now which is why you thought i was drunk when i actually was sober not drunk.

And yes the chinish and mexicese are races--- that means people of the same genetic stock you cockswaddling assmaggot pusfaced fagtard.

Rennkafer

iTrader: (3)

Sorry, the Chinese and Mexicans are nationalities, not races.



Try again soon.

crnrhrd

I was working for a audio video conferencing equipment company, a multimillion dollar company run with 11 employees. I got laid off by the owner and my brother who still works there told me he hired 3 more people and has since purchased 2 more porsches to add to the 4 he already has.

Faeflora

iTrader: (2)

No. You're wrong about me being wrong.

From webster:

"a family, tribe, people, or nation belonging to the same stock b : a class or kind of people unified by shared interests, habits, or characteristics"

You lose.

webby459

iTrader: (8)

Thanks, I'm drinking and laughed at this.

flier129

iTrader: (7)

+1

I hear the same thing about Deal's Gap. "Oh my gawd, there's 6 ppl that die a year there! That's double the amount from 10 years ago, oh my gawd!" Then we remember that there's triple the amount of people that ride/drive the road.

Back on topic, what do we do if Garrett's turbos really do turn out to be shitty? Gank some holsets off some semis?!