Global West knock off?
 

Would you buy these?........

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/58-59...#ht_500wt_1182

They are half the price!!

Not sure about those specifically, but I always thought Global Wests Del-A-Lum material was what set it apart. How would you know that the Ebay one uses the same stuff?

Not sure what the bushings are in those but in the photos the bushings look exactly the same too.

I would make sure that what is in the picture is the real part. Ask to make sure it's not a "stock" picture. I have seen a set of the knock off's in person and other than they are heavier than stock control arm the welds "look" ok not any worse than some I've seen on top brands. But you really don't know what they are made from as far as materials go. For a driver just looking to have the tubular control arm they will work, but have heard some compalin that they couldn't get it to aline very good.

They are CPP's and nice. Half price too.

I thought they looked different than the CPP arms myself...........?

They don't look like CPP.. and I didn't think CPP used the Del-A-lum stuff..

I will forward this to Global West.


In any event.. the "knock off" arms may look good but you are betting your life on the fact that the weld won't snap and send you off a cliff.

Other than that they are good.. lol

And the saying "you get what you pay for" is pretty often true.

I have the GM "A" body ones...they are not "Knock Offs" of a brand,they are different than others.CPP wouldn't put their name on the box,or risk an injury suit,I don't think,to sell them.
As far as safety,I would say mine are more than double the strength of stock arms.Look at the Feedback on the seller and see if anyone is saying they don't work...The part has been out there,but I have not seen a bad report on them.
I had 2 pro welders look at mine...no welding issues,and strength of cross supports look OK. I was going to return them if anything looked wrong,but I am putting them on,as well as UMI rear control arms...

But they look exactly like the Global west ones if you compare them. Due to no returns allowed by the seller and wanting to support a company with great product I will wait till I have the dough for the real deal from global west.

I completely agree!!

Again, the ones in the link don't look like CPP parts.. and if they were CPP wouldn't the add say CPP as a marketing deal?

And CPP arms are great, but I don't think they change the geometry. At least not on the Chevelle ones I ran.

So I think we are talking Apples and Oranges here.

I talked to Doug (owner of Global West) today.. sent him a link to the post.

He said, yea, they look like clones of his arms.. said his cost is more than they are selling them. Most likely from China and the real problem is you don't know the quality of the material, welding, or that even the geometry is right... after all, you have to cut costs someplace. Inferior ball joints, fake Del-A-Lum bushings. Things cost what they cost so for a part to be half price the maker has to slash costs someplace. Typically in the labor area and in the production cost. Low buck ball joints? How do you test a weld without doing a failure analysis? You can't tell by looking at a painted part, was there good penetration? What type of steel was used? What's inside those bushings? See where I'm going with this. If you buy a Chineese DSE control arm do you think it's anywhere nearly as good as the real deal? Plus I just hate the overall idea of supporting the practice.

Sort of sad how it happens.. fairly common though. Don't know I would risk my car on a unknown suspension part, especially if I'm going to drive it hard. Caveat Emptor, but I would rather save up a bit longer and get the real deal from our USA companies.

Hell, even if they said CPP on the side I wouldn't believe it.. did you see where they faked entire Apple stores in China? I've seen DSE arms with fake DSE stickers on them. Wanna buy a Rolex for $100? I'm sure it's just like the real one. lol

Why would you want chance hurting someone or your ride for that matter,just to save a few bucks , Thats when you stop say Am I that cheap ? LOL :rofl: beside the Quality of Global West Products is Unmistakable , The point is to improve & make better not to down grade our cars :

Steve, GTX had a thread about buying a set of control arms off ebay and when the showed up they were in the CPP boxes and thye looked like the CPP arms. I don't think these are the same arms as he bought so Apples to Oranges for sure, unless someone has a real picture of these arms from the add?

No problem.. CPP makes good stuff, but even their arms aren't that cheap.. and they don't do the Del-A-Lum stuff. Those don't look like CPP since they don't do the gold cross shafts that I know of.

I just don't think it's worth the risk.. and I love the "no returns or exchanges".. what do you think thier warranty is a year from now if an arm cracks? ;)

I'm all for value, but quality costs money and to cost the overall cost a company HAS to cut somewhere. Personally even if all they did was cut labor costs by using Chineese workers I would still pay more for the product made here by Americans.

I bought from this seller, too! The ones I got were for the GM A body. They are good looking pieces, solidly welded and weigh 3lbs more than the stock stuff per side.

The ball joints looked OK but I put tall ProForge uppers in mine. They do add several degrees of positive camber to the alignment. I have 2-3 shims, maybe 1/2" at the most to get my alignment to caster +5° and camber -1°.

No complaints in the first couple of hundred miles.

Here's a tubular on top of the factory arm to show the alignment difference in the two. It moves the ball joint back a fair bit.

Here's a little blurb from Grassroots Mag. on steering setup...
Ask the shop you are taking the car to if they have done Performance alignments...If they don't know what that is,leave...:D They are going to tell you,after they charge you for it,that your car is impossible to align.The tech is going for the factory settings and trying to get inside the allowable ranges in
'The Book".I always bring my desired specs with me so they can see what I am expecting.I went to 3 shops before I found one that would do what I asked with my Mustang that had added performance Caster/Camber Plates...the others would not go "outside specs".
I had the same experience with my '67 Mopar...I added Moog offset bushings on the control arms to help caster/camber on it since it had been lowered.

http://www.ozebiz.com.au/racetech/theory/align.html