Bus Depot "OEM Quality" Spark Plug Wires

[Sluggo]

I've had doubts about these since I got them. They just seemed cheap, and I've suspected some misfiring. I was doing some work on the engine yesterday and when my arm even barely touched the wire the charge was diverted to my arm. I grabbed each wire and could feel the shock from each pulse. Went to Kragen and picked up some Accel (Mr. Gasket) 8mm wires. When I went to put them together with the Type 4 spark plug connectors I noticed the Bus Depot wires had almost no insulation. They were as thin as rice paper. The new wires have a nice healthy coating. I put it all together and she sounded better immediately and I couldn't feel a shock from any of the wires.

I compared these wires to some old German ones in my basement. No comparison. The "OEM Quality" ones are just cheap!

[Westy78]

I have a feeling that Bosch is beginning to suffer from the poor quality bug. It's not the first part from Bosch that I've heard of being crap.

[Sluggo]

They weren't Bosch. They were supposed to be, but if you read the site it says that they may substitute an equivalent product if they are out of stock. Definitely not equivalent. These came with the "Tune Up Kit". Everything else was Bosch.

[spiffy]

Bleck, let me know the pile you throw them in so I can throw my hot start relay in with them.

[chitwnvw]

I had the same experience with the wires I got with the tune up kit. I don't know what they were, they were unmarked. The Bosch wires, also from BD, seem to be better.

[busdepot]

They weren't Bosch. They were supposed to be, but if you read the site it says that they may substitute an equivalent product if they are out of stock. Definitely not equivalent. These came with the "Tune Up Kit". Everything else was Bosch.

A couple of people have referred to plug wires that came with tune up kits from the Bus Depot. Our tune up kits don't include wires, and never have (They include cap, rotor, condenser, points, and plugs). So if you bought a tune up kit that included wires (unmarked or otherwise), you didn't buy it from us.

Sluggo, the reason you didn't get the Bosch wires is that you didn't ORDER the Bosch wires - not because we substituted anything. We do sell the Bosch wires, as well as other brands. I looked up your web order and you did order wires separately, but didn't choose the Bosch ones.
You bought these a year and a half ago. I think back then we were probably shipping Hella under that part number. Now we generally ship Bremi as the non-Bosch option. They are German made, whereas the Bosch is now Mexican made. Frankly I've found them to be more consistent in quality than the Mexican Bosch production (There have been a few posts on this forum regarding non-German Bosch parts). As I recall (and I haven't looked at the Hella ones in over a year), the insulation is comparable to current production Mexican Bosch. Of course it may as you say be inferior to an original German Bosch wire, but the same could be said of current production Bosch wires.

Of course you could have received a bad wire or set (perhaps a defect in the insulation), or they could have been damaged at some point. They do carry a warranty, but unfortunately after this much time the warranty has lapsed. We are always reevaluating the quality of our offerings, and don't hesitate to pull a product from our site if there is a pattern of problems or negative customer feedback. We did not receive complaints about these wires, and the manufacturers are well regarded.

Of course, for those who like to stick to the Bosch brand (albeit Mexican), just order those from our site. They do specifically say Bosch in the product description.

[Amskeptic]

We did not receive complaints about these wires, and the manufacturers are well regarded.

Ron,
As more people enter this hobby from a state of semi-cluelessness, you might want to consider little CYA missives like, "use the factory wire routing and the factory plastic wire clips." A properly dressed VW engine does not have any crossed ignition wires. In addition, of course, "clean your engine and compartment of all oil". Oil is hard on wires. Oh, and "these wires are adjustable for length, so make it tidy in there."
Colin

[Sluggo]

They weren't Bosch. They were supposed to be, but if you read the site it says that they may substitute an equivalent product if they are out of stock. Definitely not equivalent. These came with the "Tune Up Kit". Everything else was Bosch.

A couple of people have referred to plug wires that came with tune up kits from the Bus Depot. Our tune up kits don't include wires, and never have (They include cap, rotor, condenser, points, and plugs). So if you bought a tune up kit that included wires (unmarked or otherwise), you didn't buy it from us.

Sluggo, the reason you didn't get the Bosch wires is that you didn't ORDER the Bosch wires - not because we substituted anything. We do sell the Bosch wires, as well as other brands. I looked up your web order and you did order wires separately, but didn't choose the Bosch ones.
You bought these a year and a half ago. I think back then we were probably shipping Hella under that part number. Now we generally ship Bremi as the non-Bosch option. They are German made, whereas the Bosch is now Mexican made. Frankly I've found them to be more consistent in quality than the Mexican Bosch production (There have been a few posts on this forum regarding non-German Bosch parts). As I recall (and I haven't looked at the Hella ones in over a year), the insulation is comparable to current production Mexican Bosch. Of course it may as you say be inferior to an original German Bosch wire, but the same could be said of current production Bosch wires.

Of course you could have received a bad wire or set (perhaps a defect in the insulation), or they could have been damaged at some point. They do carry a warranty, but unfortunately after this much time the warranty has lapsed. We are always reevaluating the quality of our offerings, and don't hesitate to pull a product from our site if there is a pattern of problems or negative customer feedback. We did not receive complaints about these wires, and the manufacturers are well regarded.

Of course, for those who like to stick to the Bosch brand (albeit Mexican), just order those from our site. They do specifically say Bosch in the product description.

You're right. They just say "OEM Quality", which they definitely were not. I bought a lot of stuff from BD at first. I thought they came with the tune up kit. May have been a year and a half ago but they were only used since a few months ago when we got the engine in. Less than 1000 miles on them.

Regardless, after less than 1000 miles before they start misfiring & arcing is pretty bad. I believe this is the set I ordered. http://www.busdepot.com/details.jsp?partnumber=09171OE

[Sluggo]

By the way, it's good to see you here Ron. Welcome! Don't take all this as bashing. We just get upset when we spend our hard earned money on something and it fails a few months later.

[busdepot]

I don't take a reasonable criticism of a part as bashing (even if I don't agree with it, and sometimes I don't). In fact, I regularly browse the various forums to read reports on parts quality - both those that I sell, and those that I don't (because sooner or later the manufacturer is likely to try to sell me that part). Most of my day is spent researching and sourcing parts, and usually I consider a number of candidates when deciding which one(s) to carry. If I can't find a part in the U.S. that I feel is good quality, I start looking overseas to see what people in Germany, England, South Africa, etc. are using, and will import that part if it's better. In some cases none of them are all that great and I am unfortunately forced to choose the "lesser of the evils", or there may be only one supplier of the part altogether, so there is no choice at all. User feedback is immensely helpful in making my decisions. I personally read all feedback on parts quality that is emailed to the Bus Depot.

BUT... then you closed your post with "Once again, the Bus Depot part is crap." That is bashing, and frankly I take offense to it. That was a completely unnecessary slam.

Calling a part "crap" or "junk" is a very strong statement, and it does the community a disservice if used lightly and without a strong basis of comparison. For example, when perusing the "body parts found to be junk" thread on this forum, I found several genuine Volkswagen parts bought from the Bus Depot claimed to be "junk." The fact is, they are the best available in the present-day, far superior to the aftermarket options. They may not be as good as the versions VW made 30 years ago, but they are the very best ones you can put on your bus in the year 2007. No reference was made to the fact that the parts were genuine/OEM; only that they were bought from the Bus Depot. Without any reference to the manufacturer of the part, or to other alternatives, such a claim is not just misleading but harmful. The uninitiated will assume that if the Bus Depot part (which is, unbeknownst to them, a genuine VW part) is "junk," they should buy it elsewhere ... not realizing that they can't do better elsewhere but may very well do worse. At best they will end up with the very same part (possibly at a higher price), but much more likely they will end up getting a lower-quality aftermarket version that truly is junk.

Claiming a part to be junk without direct comparison to other currently-available versions is meaningless, because you have no valid frame of reference. Even if your frame of reference is a part from 10, 20, or 30 years ago, in all likelihood you are comparing it to something that can no longer be had, rendering the comparison moot. When Consumer Reports rates microwave items, or Motor Trend rates tires, they don't just review a single product in a vacuum. They compare it to other currently available alternatives so they have a frame of reference. Without that, the review would be meaningless. The same applies to an isolated review of a Bus part without additional reports that support the same conclusion. Was it a one-off issue, a defect, an installation error, a problem exacerbated by another problem on the vehicle? What was the basis of comparison, if any? A sample size of one is a meaningless sample. But if three, four, five people report the same experience with the same part... well then that's a pattern.

Quite frankly, if you are going to use forum topics like "parts found to be junk" (which is much more strongly worded than on any other forum I've seen), I think this point should be a 'sticky' on those threads. Any single, isolated report on a product that has not been "seconded" by others with the same experience should be taken with a grain of salt, because a sample size of one may not be representative of the product.

BTW, following up on this specific product, yes it was the part number 09171OE that you ordered way back then. I was in the shop today working on our computer system so I double-checked which brand we are stocking now under that number (as it can vary based on availability). The ones we have now are made in Germany by PVL. I haven't seen the Hellas in quite a while, and the Bremi's are presently unavailable as well, so it's likely to remain PVL for some time. PVL is not an OE supplier to VW, but does OE work for BMW among others. I have carried various PVL products and have not had any issues with quality.

[Sluggo]

BUT... then you closed your post with "Once again, the Bus Depot part is crap." That is bashing, and frankly I take offense to it. That was a completely unnecessary slam.

You're right. I edited it out of my original post.

I agree with you about specifying which exact manufacture of part you are griping about. Even if you don't have a competing part to compare something with, you can still tell if a part is junk, regardless of whether it's the best junk.

[Amskeptic]

I don't take a reasonable criticism of a part as bashing (even if I don't agree with it, and sometimes I don't).
BUT... then you closed your post with "Once again, the Bus Depot part is crap." That is bashing, and frankly I take offense to it. That was a completely unnecessary slam.

We shall endeavor to maintain a high degree of civilized discourse here. On behalf of the IAC, I'd like to extend an apology and remind readers/posters of our initial goals on this site to avoid personal attacks.
Our vendors are not the manufacturers of parts, they are the portals. Their responsibility to us is to describe what they offer in realistic terms.

Calling a part "crap" or "junk" is a very strong statement, and it does the community a disservice if used lightly and without a strong basis of comparison.

The words chosen for the sticky were chosen carefully. We will develop a more discerning list as the numbers grow. However, we cannot and should not shift the quality curve to reflect what is available versus what is possible.

The fact is, they are the best available in the present-day, far superior to the aftermarket options. They may not be as good as the versions VW made 30 years ago, but they are the very best ones you can put on your bus in the year 2007.

We will compare present-day offerings to the original.
No compromise.
It is your and other vendors' responsibility to properly represent the fact that quality has diminished across the board over the years. I had a focused discussion with Chris Nowak of the now-defunct Rocky Mountain Motorworks regarding his choice of words in his catalogues and on his website. I told him he was cruising for a crash if he insisted in crooning about superior quality *as the reason for their lifetime guarantee.*
When the catalogue blathers about "deep plush high quality carpeting with superior backing", and we customers find the thin rubber film on the back crumbling off the unraveling fibers as we try to remove it from the box, you can bet that people will return parts as defective. Those returns sucked RMMW dry.

I asked him if he had the courage to state reality.
"The best parts you can obtain today" or "the only available parts" versus "economical parts to help your budget go further"
or could he, at the least, majorly cool-down that hyperbole that sounded like Madison Avenue on cocaine. He said no. He said that your average hobbyist wasn't sophisticated enough to know the difference between today's crap and yesterday's quality. He said his job was to land the prospective hobbyist and get them stoked and roped-in to his one-stop restoration destination. I was disappointed to say the least.

That Fortune 500 company bit the dust, as have many others, due to arrogance and underestimating the intelligence of the customer. We might have a lot of newbies trickling in, but there is an internet information base that includes old-timers who knew these cars from brand new and were able to compare the superior quality of a VW beetle convertible top to only a mediocre top on a Mercedes 450 SL.

You and I and we are on the same page Ron. We love these cars, we want them to run, we need to fix them. You *can* be an honest broker between your suppliers and your customers. You can tell us, as you have, that you are looking for the best you can find. . . we're with you all the way, grateful and ready to pay, but don't wax too ecstatic about quality, wax ecstatic about availability. Let us know if you have the influence to communicate your customers' feedback to your suppliers or manufacturers, "the troops are demanding quality."
Let us know what they say.

My personal opinion, which I maintain unflinchingly, is that these cars
and their owners are being gyped by a cynical new profit-driven world. That is not a slam against you, no way, it is an observation of manufacturing out-sourcing by companies who couldn't care less about a bunch of stuck-in-the-past-hobbyists. This is the world you have to confront as you seek replacement parts. We recognize this. Acknowledge it. You will have loyal customers who can trust you.
You have the power to be an indispensable resource
if you are steady and straight with your customers and recognize that people originally gravitated towards these cars because of their remarkable quality, not because they were "fast/cool/pretty".
Colin

[hambone]

I do understand a vendor's problems in these situations, and I have sympathy.
However, junk is junk regardless of the quality of his sibling. I have been suckered so many times with pretty junk that I am very grateful for the power of the internet. Espeically with AC VWs - they were manufactured to such high quality that to put a cheap "modern" part on my '69 would totally destroy the fit and function that I enjoy and require for my demanding applications, not to mention the spirit of my "lifetime vehicle".
Unfortunately, if junk is sold by a vendor, then I cry "guilt by association!!"

[busdepot]

So we have the issue of using parts that have not been available for 30 years and never will again as the "standard" against which anything else is considered "junk." I still insist that this is unrealistic (regrettably so). We can wish for the "good old days" all we want, but nothing is going to turn back time 35 years. Most would agree that VW does not build to the same quality today that they did in their heyday when all was German, even for their new models (Nor does anybody else; "they don't make 'em like they used to" is said about nearly everything under the sun). So, held to that standard, every genuine VW part built today could be proclaimed "junk" (and many have on this forum). Given that we don't live in 1972 anymore, what we must do is seek out - even demand - the finest quality that actually IS actually obtainable, given current production options, demand, and halfway reasonable price constraints (You could make a part out of solid gold, and it might last forever, but nobody could afford to buy it). That is a reasonable standard, and one that does not require turning back the hands of time. I guess we'll have to agree to disagree.

But there is still the issue of sample size when it comes to pronouncing a product "good" or "junk." If hundreds or even thousands of people have used a product and been satisfied, but there is only ONE review posted on the product and that user says it's junk, does this make it junk, or just a one-off issue of some sort? Like I said, a review sample size of one is a meaningless sample.

Take a look at the websites that feature user reviews, like epinions.com or Amazon.com. There may be 20 reviews on the identical product and they range from "this is the best thing since sliced bread" to "this product is complete crap". If you were to read just one of the reviews, without reading the others, it's a complete crapshoot whether you'd come away assuming that the product was incredible or utterly worthless. But if you read them all, you start to see a pattern. Either most people think it's good, or most think it's bad. You discover which is the norm, and which is the exception.

When there is only a single review of a product, there simply isn't enough data to make an informed decision. Too many variables enter into the equation (installation, possible defect or damage, the expertise or expectations of the reviewer, etc. etc.). When there are multiple reviews of the identical product, these variables tend to average out among the many samples, so you end up with useful data. This is the basis of statistical analysis.

Put differently, there's a reason why pollsters ask a lot of people the same question, or scientists test a number of subjects, before publishing a report. The bigger the sample size, the more valid the data. A sample size of one is completely worthless.

In time, as more reviews are posted, it can reach a point where there are multiple reviews of the same product, so that a pattern or consensus can be established that is not case-specific. In the meantime, all that can be determined from a single review is that a particular person had a particular experience with a particular sample of a product that was installed in a particular manner on a particular Bus that was in a particular condition. This can be useful on a limited basis (you have to start somewhere), but a sweeping generalization about the quality of the product (good OR bad) simply cannot be made from that limited data.

[bottomend]

Great discussion! Lets get this moved to a forum where it now belongs...

I'll chime in with my opinion;

I'd like to view (In a perfect world, or a very tight-knit little hobbyist community, hint, hint) vendors as a sort of senator who represents what the "constituents" want/need.

The mentality of the RMMW people smells of the typical corrupt/bourgeois attitude that signals the end of the reign of a king. "Let them eat cake!"... and my response to that is "off with YOUR heads"!

The scale to which information can be looked at on the internet has changed how merchants can and MUST do business. There are not too many dark little corners that are still available to hide in and hope no one is noticing. I have personally "met" ( quotes are used because we're merely online "friends") lots and lots of people who have gone from being complete newbies to what could be considered fairly fluent in the language of VW in a matter of a year (Sluggo being right there on the list). These are 'Hungry Hobbyists" and they might have the wool pulled over their eyes once or twice but after that, survival kicks in and anyone who sticks around after the initial whipping, learns a whole lot about where they can and should spend their money REAL QUICK.

Jake Raby has given us a model that to some, might be hard to swallow. But NO ONE can argue that he doesn't lead by example and wont compromise quality. He doesn't bend and he backs up his research but, lets be realistic, his prices reflect that.

I've been sucked in by fancy wording myself a few times. I bought one of those amazing rug kits the first month I owned my bus. The company I sent it back to wasn't happy and what do you think they said? "You should have known what you were buying." I asked the guy for his recommendation! I told him I knew NOTHING about this stuff! I bought a bus because IT has a happy face! He made ME have a sad face!

We went around for a little bit and I guess I won because they are no longer in business ( this wasn't RMMW BTW) touché!!

BD, I can understand your position about finding a post on a website naming you as "part of the problem". But, I've been standing right next to Sluggo NUMEROUS times when he's opened boxes from online vendors (you guys included) and the STINKING ORDER IS MESSED UP, AGAIN! Either it's the wrong part or we install it and it doesn't fit, or it breaks as we install it or shortly there-after. Frustrated? You bet.

I know my post didn't resolve anything. I didn't intend to simply stir up the flames that have been fanned here. I agree with Colin that we, as customers NEED to stand up and demand better "junk", and then not cry about it when the price is adjusted accordingly.