When reputation is all you have to go on.
My last post was a essay pointing out the pitfalls in relying on reputation. But there are many cases where you have to go by reputation, as there is little in the way of an alternative. Because, for most products today, there is a huge range of alternatives with a matching rage of prices: and how else do you judge the quality?
I am currently looking to replace a set of worn-out disc rotors on the bike. A set of genuine units cost around £400: but frequently people opt for after-market kit. Illustrated on the left are the awesome Brembo HPK rotors - but at £500+ a pair they are not cheap. There are some less expensive, but equally well-known, brands such as EBC and Armstrong, which come in around £300 a pair.
And then there's Amazon & eBay. The disks illustrated on the right are for sale at £120 a pair. There's no branding, and the only information is that they come from China.
Now, there are two ways of reading this.
You can assume that you get what you pay for, and that these cheap units will be rubbish.
The counter argument is that most of the branded stuff is probably made in China anyway, so there's no reason to assume these cheap units will be as bad as the price suggests. After all it may be that, as you're not paying for the advertising, sponsorship & expensive European HQ of the big brands, the saving is reasonable.
The real problem is that it is impossible to tell how good they are, just by look and feel. The aluminium hubs may be an aerospace quality forging finished on a state-of-the-art machining center. Or they could be re-cycled drinks cans hacksawed to shape in a shed: under the gold paint you simply couldn't tell. With just a photo to go on you have no chance.
Given the importance of these components it isn't a risk I am willing to take: I'm going to have to go on reputation. Brembo has a decades-long history of quality kit. The forums are full of (mostly) satisfied users of EBC & Armstrong. So it's a reasonable bet these parts will do the job. But, as I have said before, reputation is not infallible!
Post-script (February 2015) - I bought the Brembos.
I am currently looking to replace a set of worn-out disc rotors on the bike. A set of genuine units cost around £400: but frequently people opt for after-market kit. Illustrated on the left are the awesome Brembo HPK rotors - but at £500+ a pair they are not cheap. There are some less expensive, but equally well-known, brands such as EBC and Armstrong, which come in around £300 a pair.And then there's Amazon & eBay. The disks illustrated on the right are for sale at £120 a pair. There's no branding, and the only information is that they come from China.
Now, there are two ways of reading this.
You can assume that you get what you pay for, and that these cheap units will be rubbish.
The counter argument is that most of the branded stuff is probably made in China anyway, so there's no reason to assume these cheap units will be as bad as the price suggests. After all it may be that, as you're not paying for the advertising, sponsorship & expensive European HQ of the big brands, the saving is reasonable.
The real problem is that it is impossible to tell how good they are, just by look and feel. The aluminium hubs may be an aerospace quality forging finished on a state-of-the-art machining center. Or they could be re-cycled drinks cans hacksawed to shape in a shed: under the gold paint you simply couldn't tell. With just a photo to go on you have no chance.
Given the importance of these components it isn't a risk I am willing to take: I'm going to have to go on reputation. Brembo has a decades-long history of quality kit. The forums are full of (mostly) satisfied users of EBC & Armstrong. So it's a reasonable bet these parts will do the job. But, as I have said before, reputation is not infallible!
Post-script (February 2015) - I bought the Brembos.
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