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Chinese Air Locker Group Buy

its your money, waste it however you choose. report back with your success/failure.

but don't bitch at those of us that have deal with Chinese knock-offs and know the risks.

these "good factories in china" are the ones that are QC'd by foreign companies, the ones you are looking at are not.
 
Honestly I respect your attempt in trying to save yourself and others money but this is not a subject on which I recommend you save money. I have to thoroughly agree with rock climber and others, your (Chinese) differential is not proven! Yes things can be duplicated but the duplicator has not worked out all the issues and I do not want it to be at my expense. Gleason, Detroit, and others have almost a century of statistics and track record. I buy from Harbor Freight when it is something I need to use once or twice a year, if it fails oh well! If my locker fails and I'm alone I do not want to hoof it out 20 miles or so, or even leave it to the scavengers to strip it clean! If my locker fails with others wheelers I do not want to burden others by blocking a trail and holding them up. My Detroits have been in my XJ since 1992. They have been threw most of the toughest So. Cal. trails including Surprise Canyon and Panamint City and the Hammers. What I am saying is sometimes you can'y go cheap, sometimes you shouldn't go cheap!
 
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When Nelson tells you you're being too cheap you know it's bad .!.:D.!.
 
For all the time you spent putting this all together you could spend the hours making a little more money and buy a quality product that's already out there. Penny wise and pound foolish.
 
The video was included and discussed ad nauseam from the links in my original post- which has been confirmed over and over and over again that no one has bothered to investigate.

No worries though, most of you already are locked and if not, have done your research and decided what you want. You've all proven helpful with your comments and I see more clearly the route I will take.
 
ARB has some of the best customer service I've never delt with. I picked up two ARBs installed in two blown up axles (ring and pinion failure due to bad install). I pulled the diffs (one very rusty) and sent them back to ARB to have them inspect both diffs and upgrade the front to 30 spline. A week goes by and I call them asking what the ETA is an how much is it going to cost me? Their response? "No charge and your diffs should be delivered tomorrow. " I get the boxes and open them up, they installed new bearings on both diffs, new seal housings and gave me two install kits with switches and solenoids, all for the low low price of free. Now if a Chinese company will do that for their customers then maybe I might think about buying one of their diffs.
 
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Congrats, that sounds like a really great experience.

Honestly, while you may not have paid for that work being done, it certainly was not free. The premium that ARB commands pays for that kind of excellent customer service, of which you clearly benefitted. I can't yet justify $2300 plus install and ........ whatever to have that exceptional service, however rare it is needed.

But seriously, kudos for you and your find.
 
crmerrill said:
Congrats, that sounds like a really great experience.

Honestly, while you may not have paid for that work being done, it certainly was not free. The premium that ARB commands pays for that kind of excellent customer service, of which you clearly benefitted. I can't yet justify $2300 plus install and ........ whatever to have that exceptional service, however rare it is needed.

But seriously, kudos for you and your find.
Click to expand...

You should PM RWKHaus if you plan on spending $2300 for lockers.
 
crmerrill..

Instead of continuing down this path, Why wont you just pull the trigger on the chinese lockers, and try them out..

one of two things can happen, A: They work out great, and you gain confidence in them enough to say you support the company.

Or B: You regret it.

You cant start a revolution without standing up and being a leader..
 
NW-ZJ-SCOTT said:
crmerrill..

Instead of continuing down this path, Why wont you just pull the trigger on the chinese lockers, and try them out..

one of two things can happen, A: They work out great, and you gain confidence in them enough to say you support the company.

Or B: You regret it.

You cant start a revolution without standing up and being a leader..
Click to expand...

I tried to state pretty clearly in previous posts that I am not continuing to pursue this path as there is not enough support i.e. none to adequately discount and mitigate the obvious risk involved. As far as me just going for it alone, they don't currently make an 8.8 locker; buying a single D30 is not cost effective as we're missing the main goal of this post for having a group buy discount on the product and shipping. As was stated multiple times, a zip locker for a D30 isn't prohibitively more expensive and would have more accessible service/warranty related support if needed.

And let's be honest, if we did play out your scenario where I buy the lockers and wheeled them with positive results, would that really change people's opinions?? None of you know me personally, or how I wheel or how to place value on my experience. That makes for very little credibility to a very critical group of people. I already see the excuses of why my diffs haven't grenaded into tiny little communist pieces i.e. I don't wheel hard enough, or NC doesn't have real rocks, or I'm just on 33s... Don't get me wrong, I appreciate the critical/skeptical nature of people, I just don't have the presence here to support that potentially positive review.

Bottom line- I'm not trying to prove anything to anyone. I have no agenda, no revolution to start or world to change with this stuff... I just like to play in the rocks and want to do it better and on a budget.
 
crmerrill said:
I tried to state pretty clearly in previous posts that I am not continuing to pursue this path as there is not enough support i.e. none to adequately discount and mitigate the obvious risk involved.
Click to expand...

I'm still trying to wrap my head around this.

In the OP the price was said to be $480 plus shipping and a discount of 2-5% potential. Lets assume the low end discount is given which is 2% off of $480 being $9.60 saved. Under 10 bucks, is that enough to be a deal breaker? If 10 bucks is not adequate discount then maybe you need to just not wheel trails that require a locker until you can afford to do so. Or, lets go out on a limb here and assume the maximum discount of 5% or $24 is given. 24 bucks is not to me any great discount to make installing an unknown locker into a vehicle and risk the potential of being left stranded out in the middle of nowhere plus the potential huge repair bill.

Of course shipping maybe discounted if you are having all the lockers shipped to you and then reship them back out to people in your group buy. Now of course each person will pay for their own shipping from you that should just be a given but how much time and effort is going to go into reshipping these things? Will the lockers come individually boxed or just tossed in one large box? You are looking at not only time packing lockers and trips to the post office but also shipping supplies. Not to mention the potential headaches of a group buy and shipping delays and people hounding you to get their lockers and then coming to you when they break for answers.

All for $9.60 in savings as stated in the OP as the goal? Sounds like a great plan from the start to me. Hasta
 
I bought two lockers a couple years ago
In the front, a 9" 31spl full case auto of Chinese decent
In the rear, an arb 8.8

When the locker failed within months, the customer service asked I was at fault, despite being well within mfr specs for the product guidelines. They eventually repaired my defective locker after my eating shipping one way.

When I broke my arb rocker cover, most likely due to my own error, one was sent next day air to my location, no questions asked

Guess who I would rather spend my money with next time?
 
crmerrill said:
As far as me just going for it alone, they don't currently make an 8.8 locker; buying a single D30 is not cost effective as we're missing the main goal of this post for having a group buy discount on the product and shipping. QUOTE]

It seems like the whole point of this thread was to find 14 people willing to gamble on an untested product so crmerril could get an air locker for his 8.8...
Click to expand...
 
I'd give him the $10 he will get discounted just to make this thread go away.. :)
 
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