> Basically AutoZone
> wants to sell a name brand item for X number of dollars, they contact that
> manufacturer and say can you do it and the manufacturer decides
> if it can be
> done for that price point and if so the item is made but
> something has to be
> sacrificed to make the price. I am not saying the less expensive
> parts won't
> do the job (you bet they will, lawyers are watching out for our best
> interests here ;^) )
You mean like Firestone tires on Ford Explorers ???
I thought it most amusing that Ford switched to Firestone from Goodyear
because they were a few cents cheaper. The critical difference appears to
be that the Firestone tires have less of the feature that is supposed to
prevent this exact problem, with the result that their tires are 500 times
more likely to suffer tread separation in hot weather. Firestone apparently
doesn't even control the size very well, since it varies from plant to
plant, for supposedly identical tires.
Even more entertaining, the reason Goodyear will no longer make tires with
the thinner wedge (and refused the contract from Ford to do so) is because
they had an "unacceptably high" rate of tread separation failures with the
thinner wedge ...
Randall
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