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March 16, 2005
Even Korea Worries about Non-OEM Parts
I thought I was moving on to new topics and putting the aftermarket parts issue aside for the moment, when the subject reared its ugly head again.
The Korea Herald posted a story yesterday about the problems Koreans face with counterfeit car parts circulating in the country. According to the story, these non-OEM parts are structurally weaker and are unable to bear the same level of stress OEM’s can before breaking. According to the story, “[u]sage of such non-genuine parts was found to be the major cause of several recent car accidents in the country”.
The story went on to identify “[a] recent comparative test by Hyundai Mobis Technical Research Institute shows the low quality of a counterfeit bumper that copied the registered design of a genuine parts supplier. According to the test, the genuine bumper had a compressive strength of 3.3 metric tons whereas the counterfeit broke at 1.5 tons.”
In July 2004, a California Court of Appeals found certification of a class against an insurer for dictating use of non-OEM parts to be proper and allowed the case to proceed as a class action. In that opinion, the California court stated significantly:
The legislative requirement that insurers use replacement parts of like "kind, quality, safety, fit and performance" to OEM parts suggests to us the Legislature is well aware there have been problems with some non-OEM parts. Indeed, as noted by Farmers, one year after the Lebrillas filed their lawsuit, the Legislature enacted Senate Bill No. 1178, authorizing a study to "consider the appropriate criteria or standards [necessary] for certifying crash parts" and to identify an oversight agency for certifying non-OEM parts. (Assembly Committee on Business and Professions, Staff Comments on SB 1178, as amended April 26, 2001 (July 10, 2001).) * * * Clearly, the Legislature and insurance companies are aware that not all inferior non-OEM parts have been eliminated. Thus, we reject Farmers's [sic] suggestion it can be inferred the Legislature in passing California Code of Regulations, title 10, section 2695.8(j), impliedly determined "crash parts" are not inferior.(Italics added.)
Lebrilla v. Farmers Group, Inc., 119 Cal. App. 4th 1070, 1085 (Cal. Ct. App., 2004)
The frightening thing about the proposed NCOIL model act and Assembly Bill 1163 currently pending in the California Legislature is that they both subscribe to the theory that if you simply say something is true, then it mystically becomes so. Just saying that non-OEM parts are equivalent to OEM parts does not make that statement true. Passing legislation to make that statement a legal presumption does not mean these non-OEM parts are miraculously transformed in to parts of true, measurable quality equivalent to that of OEMs, and it is just foolish to believe that this is a viable solution to a real problem.
Astonishingly, the proposed solution to the imitation parts issue is to to close our eyes and pretend it doesn't exist, rather than taking action to ensure that any parts used to repair our motor vehicles (OEM or aftermarket) meet the highest safety and quality standards.
Korea is already worried about the poor quality non-OEM parts circulating in that country. Are we silly enough to believe that those parts are not already available in the U.S.? Passing legislation that says these parts are presumed to be suitable for use in vehicle repair will open the floodgates and ensure that we are soon awash in poor quality, cheap, and potentially dangerous replacement car parts. And who will step up to the plate and be responsible for the deaths of our residents when the failures of these parts start killing people?
Let me leave you with these thoughts from the Korea Herald article:
“Use of non-genuine wheel bolts also account for a large number of major accidents on highways. Most of the wheel bolts circulated on the market are non-genuine.
According to the Mobis research institute's test results, counterfeit wheel bolts are 20 percent weaker than the genuine article, and are even more deficient in structure quality.
The same applies to brake pads. The non-genuine brake pads' adhesive strength is 40 percent less than genuine pads, undermining the car's brake performance.”
Enough said.
Posted by E L Eversman at March 16, 2005 11:22 AM
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