Thread: Cheap Gen 3's

Too easy mate! The beauty of the Internet is that people don't have to check the letterbox for mail anymore and things often get overlooked for days or weeks!

Watching this with great interest as I am about to replace my bags. I'm guessing it will come down to a visual inspection of the quality of the new bags, unless you manage to pop one very quickly after installing ! The actual manufacturing of the bags is not overly complicated but the difference (if any) will be in the quality of the parts and their construction. I am expecting these to give Arnott a good run for their money...

Bags arrived today at my wifes work. I'll post my observations and a couple of pics ASAP, any way four days from LA is not too bad though.......stay tuned.

The guy who's comments I posted earlier, bought his bags in Feb, so I presume they havn't popped yet.

Rob

OK,

First impressions are that they appear to be well made with solid steel crimps on the bags.

They also appear to be longer possibly by about 30mm, could be more, but I'm reluctant to fully extend them. Definitely well machined stepped piston with no dags hanging off.

The bladder is thinner than the standard dunlops and its hard to tell if its natural rubber or synthetic. If their chinese made, and I suspect they are, their not bad quality at all.

I'll fit them when I come back from the corner and see what happens.

Interesting to note it appears that Arnotts have taken down the schematic of their bags!

Rob

Confirmed, the airbags are as near as can be copies of Arnotts' Gen 111's. Length OA, bag length, piston step and length, down to cut strand plastic top, even the top crimp looks identical. They don't look weak in any way .

Can't wait to put em on, then I can find out what you gen 111 owners all rave about. Might have to get rid of the Bilsteins though.

Rob

Thanks for the early review Rob - just bought a set for myself.

I feel p*ssed off on behalf of Arnotts. These are obviously a direct copy of their design and IP.
If I ever need to replace my Gen III's again (unlikely as they have a lifetime warranty) or buy another P38 and have to change the air springs, I will not buy these Chinese rip-offs.
However, I hope they serve you well.

I wrestled with this before deciding to purchase the ebay ones. Firstly I looked for an Australian distributor for Arnotts - if I'm going to pay more I'd rather an Aussie company get a slice of it where I would have local support. After not finding a local option and knowing I'd then have to deal with an overseas company regardless, plus pay GST + import duty on a >$1000 purchase it put the price difference at around $600 - that's $600 my family could use.

Paul I know you'd feel the sting of this more than most with your experience with Hard Range but this is the world we live in. A friend of mine was manufacturing performance car parts and couldn't compete with the Chinese knockoffs so he met the challenge and opened a manufacturing operation in China. Still an Aussie company and still trading which is better than closing the doors entirely.

I'm sure I'm opening a can of worms and if the air springs fail on me then there's no-one to blame but myself - I've accepted the risk and in weighing up all the pros & cons a difference of $600 is worth it to me. This would be different for each individual.