GM restoration certified items, snake oil?? or not!!!

T

Toby_Goodmk

Test Fit officianto
Joined
Dec 9, 2011
I saw this picture recently which I will let the distributor of the product remain nameless as this topic of conversation is not to mean harm, but converse what MFG restoration truly means and if it is "snake oil marketing ploy" or truly a better product. Marketing a product through means of perception is a free market right, but I am curious as to what others in the community think about it. I have 15 years of experience in producing and test marketing and engineering as well as reverse engineering products. This has resulted in over 50 million dollars in tooling for the restoration community. I have never had to result with my experiences with using the restoration certification as a way of making and selling products. It is something curious to me as to if a label surely helps the consumer feel they are getting a better product or not.

Please open conversation!!
 

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It would have been a perfect world if the parts list had been split between MFGs instead of multiple suppliers for one part and none for others.

When I look in a parts catalog and see three grades of the same part I'm reasonably sure some of those parts are not as good as the originals.

PER GM: Our restoration parts are designed by licensed manufacturers to meet GM specs and labeled to keep your classic car or truck as true-to-original as possible.

I would expect that label to guarantee that the part is least as good as the original. In some cases another mfg's part may actually be superior to the original.
I don't know how one proves that except thu word of mouth?

I paid a ton of money to replace the exhaust with original parts the first time. I used aftermarket the second time.
I could not afford the original gas tank and settled for aftermarket. I keep it full always :)
Its about choices....
 
I have done some licensing with floormats for GM and Mopar. As long as I sent them a drawing on the use of their logo and paid them 10% and told them what I would sell I had a license for that item. Just with today's nature of certified product... I.E. CAPA and NSF certified replacement crash product these standards use an INDEPENDENT facility to test for like kind and quality. Most if not all MFG will use an ISO or QS certified MFG to insure their documents and SOP is up to date and practiced. In ths case with the door skin I question how GM could verify a certified part for fit (referring to this "gap") since a door skin is crimped onto an existing frame and the gap is only as good as the person installing and crimping the edge. Since they were used doors I assume they were painted...and then sanded for accurate measurements? And, if this was a complete door shell put together, how could GM certify or guarantee a certain gap and how could this new MFG keep the gap the same since two pieces of metal are coming together and crimped with a tool. I would imagine the gaps would vary as the age and use of the tool, hence is the reason there are 10 different measurements taken with the used doors that was commented on using for making the tool.
I feel the only true way to certify a product for guaranteed fit is with CAPA. Read about it. Its what the crash market has gone to. Most if not all factories in the restoration markets are familiar with this standard and use it.
http://www.capacertified.org/
I am all for quality standards just dont understand totally the use of GM, Ford, Mopar, etc restoration certified by distributors if they feel their product is quailty
 
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GM will call anything an "officially licensed product" if they get a big enough cut of the profits... people have been bitching about the lack of quality of the "official GM" restoration parts for Chevelles and Camaros for a while now.
 
novaderrik said:
GM will call anything an "officially licensed product" if they get a big enough cut of the profits... people have been bitching about the lack of quality of the "official GM" restoration parts for Chevelles and Camaros for a while now.
Click to expand...


yea, I know first hand about this and the reason they are lacking quality is the amout of use that set of tools is seeing, over time that tool is punching out ALL the mfg's product brands across the nation...not just GM resto suppliers..... It seems GM restoration should monitor like CAPA and keep the product and tools in good working order and be more of a quality certification than a marketing program. I think all the Restoration certification is to line the pockets of the big 3, GM in particular
 
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I'm not impressed by CAPA parts at all. They are not the equal of original parts IMHO. Can't speak to the resto parts.
They walk that tight line of just good enough to work yet a cost saving passed to the insurance company.
While not nearly as extensive, my two kids have crashed enough cars that I have some experience in this matter.
 
well keep in mind such as a CAPA certified item is not a brand name just like GM Restoration in not a brand name. THey are mfg by someone else, just teh rules to be certified are different, where one is tested and measured and the other isnt. It is true you could get some CAPA certified items that have not been examined , or complained about recently. At least with that program its independent and a source for a fix if needed. You have the ability with that program to file complaint and the MFG and DIST have to look into the issue. THe restoration certification doesnt give this. At least capa is something geared towards producing a quality item.
 
It's all pretty much made in China. Probably at the same shop, a shop owned by their brother/cousin, or the one across the alley that copied it. Like the TommyBoy movie, you can crap in a box and put the label on it. That doesn't make it a good part because of the label. I know I have run into the(any) brand being run into the ground and having to switch to something else even though the last one was good.
Caveat emptor especially in this day and age. The biggest problem for many is their level of knowledge can't distinguish between good products and crao so the mfg/seller can dump crao in the box and put a label on it.

Posted from the TurboBuick.Com mobile app
 
Well the consensus is starting to shape up as to certifying a product by making it with a label with the brand means a hill of beans, which is kind of what I was thinking.
 
Depends on your target market. If you are selling to a bunch that aren't car guys, that don't work on their own stuff and sport polo shirts and name brand britches, then yes, a label matters. If your buyer is a grease under his finger nails, calus handed, blue collar guy who does his own work then no, I don't care what the label sez, and have been known to not follow the mfg recommendations, and use the product in a way not specified in the instructions.
But that is just my way.
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So.... that's my car, an 84 WH1 and that's my note. I drove it to the show and home in the rain only so people could see in person the GM Restoration door skins from Highway Stars as installed on an otherwise straight car. Seeing them not installed can give you some idea of quality such as straightness, lack of sharp edges, ecoating etc, but all doesn't mean squat until they are installed. I got nothing but amazing comments from the crowd and challenge any concour level judge to be able to distinguish them from factory. All the style lines and curves are dead on. The dimension I was refering to is the front to back taken at several height points on 10 factory non crashed cars from the 84 to 87 range. And we found up to 1/8" in this factory dimension data. This is in part as these were full frame cars built in an earlier stage of assembly line robotics, with less tight tolerances than today. The "new" Regal will have a much tighter marble roll down the body seams as it's unit body / modern robitics built. Nice, but not the body on frame RWD car we like for all the reasons we like them. So a dimension had to be decided upon IE where the panel 90 deg edge fold starts so that once crimped by the body shop, the resulting dimension hits the mean dimension of all cars sampled. So that's what was done. These have that edge just like the GM service replacement skin would have had when available. The body shop that did the implementation at first wanted to turn us away. They don't deal with repop sheet metal. Been there, been burned with junk metal and an over-hours project resulting in unhappy techs and customers. This is a high end resto shop, not a crash and dent shop. In the end they could not distinguish from a GM original service replacement. That CAPA stuff is for crash parts to set a Minimum acceptable level so that people are not injured or killed by low standard parts should they be in a post repair crash. Yes when you go to Rockauto for a simple part for your Jeep there are like 12 different brake rotors to choose from. There is such a range there has to be some regulation to keep a minimum acceptable. The GM Restoration parts system may not be perfect, and there are probably more bad Chevy parts out there due to shear volume, but to generalise about 2 particular parts, L & R door skins, that you have not seen, or inspected as loose and installed is completey unfair. Ask Dennis Kirban who "wrote the books" on Turbo Regals how it looked in person. In fact as he always likes to take lots of pictures at events and he spent some time looking it over, maybe he even took that picture. Who knows. The purpose of these skins is to allow a guy or gal with an otherwise saveable car to get the door dent and rot problem solved and keep the car in the fold to enjoy.
 
they might be nice, and your car might have been the perfect car for them to fit on, but for the price i'd rather just find a set of solid original Cutlass or Regal doors and bolt them on than screw around with making new sheetmetal fit on old door frames.
 
Novaderrik that's a great option if you can find them but the supply is really drying up. Saddly Speedway in AZ., the Buick junkyard, has been closed a while now. Most good appearing doors have lots of rust in the lower seams, an unfortunate side effect of the sandwiched metal assembly and 30 years If you were to cut the skin off the good appearing door you would find lots of hidded rust crumbling out---after an expensive paint job it may rear it's uggly head in a year or who knows when, and the lower seams are often soft and swollen. Desert SW would be the only area of the country to find them solid, but getting them here with no dents is the other problem equaling more bodyshop time and possible now having to have filler on there. On my car I'd hang a straight desert door, but then you have to get be sure the regulator and window motor is good too. A lot of SW cars have bad door hinges as well from the sand in there constantly wearing away as the car flexes and doors are opened and closed. Living in the midwest it's a better bet to go with new sheet metal the way I do the math.
 
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