The package has no made in sticker on it....writing in German and then febi Germany on the package....

I understand how they are repackager of crappy parts.....I just can figure out why they would go to the extra trouble of having the bushing molded/cast with their name and Germany.....when they could simply toss two unmarked bushings in the bag.....and saved money....its impossible to add the molded letters onto the bushings after fabrication....

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for what its worth, the meyle bushings (made in china) have MEYLE GERMANY embossed on the bushings. i'm assuming they just ship the tooling as a whole to the factory in china.

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1981 NA 300D 310k miles

No.

The names of the companies are, respectively, Meyle Germany and Febi Germany.

It is intentionally misleading so that uneducated buyers believe the parts are actually MADE in Germany, when this is often NOT the case.

If you're going to buy Chinese parts, why bother with the German branding? Might as well buy the real deal 100% Chinese parts and save some money in the process. You swear there's still a factory somewhere in Germany cranking out w123 bushings.

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CENSORED due to not family friendly words

If I could find these in Chinese parts, I probably would have bought them.....I got these sent from the UK for 15$ I think shipped....don't think I could have gotten anything cheaper....if I had the dough I would attempt to hunt down German made bushings, but frankly....I don't think they can even be found.....funds are very tight for me....but my bushing has completely rotted....leading to tire ware and clunk.....I figured a cheap Chinese knock off would be better....I was in no way looking for a German part or expected these to be German....I just thought it was a shock when they read Germany...

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This was on my 95 E320 wagon.

You mean like URO?

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Graham
85 300D,72 350SL, 98 E320, Outback 2.5

There's a whole laundry list of URO parts I installed in our cars all of which are still functioning flawlessly without issue. I'm sure there's some bad URO parts out there but I haven't encountered them. In the meantime cheap Chinese parts (URO and other brands) have saved me enough money to buy a small fleet of old Benzes. I maintain 2 MBs and 3 Volvos in our family, the youngest of which is 17 years old with 230k miles on the clock. The total parts bill would add up very quickly if I was always paying for OE or factory parts. Frankly I have more important things to do with my money than keep the dealer parts counter in business.

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CENSORED due to not family friendly words

I think someone said that Febi don't make parts. That is not correct. They have a large manufacturing facility in Germany. However, they are also a very large distributor of aftermarket parts. some of which no doubt are made in China.

The last Febi part I purchased, was a chain tensioner for my R107. Installed in 2008. Never a problem. I still have the box. Company name is Febi-bilstein (Not Febi Germany) and box sticker says Made in Germany.

It is well known that many popular brand name products are being illegally copied and produced in China. Some copies are so good, only the manufacturer would be able to tell.

They even copy complete cars!

Left side C-Class, Right side Geely Merrie 300


I had some discussions with Bosch regarding a fuel pump. They were suspicious that it might be a knock-off. They asked for and I sent them detailed pictures. It turned out it was a Bosch pump, but made in Japan. However, they told me that many of their parts are being illegally copied. Something they are actively trying to stamp out.

I would suggest that if you have bad experience with a Febi product, that you contact Febi directly. You might get some satisfaction, but even if not, at least you will provide feedback that will allow FEBI to maintain their objectives of only supplying OE equivalent parts:

febi USA | Quality

It could be that their QC is not working as it should, but it could also be that you have been supplied fake products.

I would not buy off eBay. Buy from a reputable parts supplier. Won't guaranty anything, but will improve odds.

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Graham
85 300D,72 350SL, 98 E320, Outback 2.5

If you talk to anyone who owns an MB repair shop or installs these parts for a living, they will tell you all you need to know about Meyle and Febi parts.

And the reports from the professionals are not very good.

There are plenty of sources to get genuine MB factory parts at wholesale cost or significantly below, without going to the dealer and paying their exhorbitant parts price markups (or matrix pricing).

When you're fixing old MBs for a living and you're dependent on repeat customers, I can see why you wouldn't want to take the risk. After all, you're not paying for the parts, the customer is and on top of that you're charging for labor which is far more expensive than even dealer parts. The customer will never know the difference except when something goes wrong and they come back unhappy or worse, you lose their business all together. I buy my own parts, do my own labor and can asses the quality of each part before its installed. I've returned plenty of parts that I didn't like. Free return shipping is a beautiful thing. I have more control over quality than any customer walking into the local MB mechanic.

These are old cars, they're not going to last forever and any money that goes into them is sunk cost. I'm going to keep them running safely in very good condition as long as its still economically rational to do so at minimum cost.

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CENSORED due to not family friendly words

Not Mercedes, but I bought a whole front end's worth of parts for our 89 BMW and I decided to buy mostly Flennor, another German company that seems to be something of a crap shoot. The parts were all marked "Flennor Germany" and the only "made in " statement I found on the packaging was "Made in Flennor" wherever that is....

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80 300SD (129k mi) 82 240D stick (193k mi)77 240D auto - stick to be (153k mi) 85 380SL (145k mi) 89 BMW 535i 82 Diesel Rabbit Pickup (374k mi) 91 Jetta IDI Diesel (155k mi) 81 VW Rabbit Convertible Diesel 70 Triumph Spitfire Mk III (63kmi)66 Triumph TR4a IRS (90k mi)67 Ford F-100 (??)

Your car CAN last forever (or as long as you own it) if you properly invest in keeping it on the road. Part of a proper investment is buying parts that are of good quality and will last. Part of a proper investment is doing the labor right (or hiring a mechanic who can and will do the labor right, and use good quality parts). And it is far easier and more possible, with Mercedes-Benz cars, to successfully do this over most other marques.

You wouldn't take an intentional shortcut on your labor to slap a part onto your car, would you?

You wouldn't intentionally install sub-standard appliances or use sub-par building materials in your house, would you?

So why would you intentionally use sub-par parts on your Mercedes-Benz?

As I said earlier, knowingly using cheap Chinese parts that are known-bad on your car, is intentional vehicular desecration.

I think that's one of the former republics in the USSR ... somewhere near Uzbekistan. I think ...

Inside a TRW W201 ball joint that was boxed as Mercedes original part =>



Not greased as well as I'd like - whilst there is grease there it is more in the boot than nicely smeared around the joint.

Now I know that when you install the joint it will probably get squished down into the joint but well I'd like to see a little bit more effort.

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1992 W201 190E 1.8 171,000 km - Daily driver
1981 W123 300D ~ 100,000 miles / 160,000 km - project car stripped to the bone
1965 Land Rover Series 2a Station Wagon CIS recovery therapy!
1961 Volvo PV544 Bare metal rat rod-ish thing

I'm here to chat about cars and to help others - I'm not here "to always be right" like an internet warrior



Don't leave that there - I'll take it to bits!