Interesting read about Garrett turbos, from another forum

[Oneofthegreats]

Mmmmm.

Something to think about if you plan on upgrading your turbo!!!!!

Originally Posted by mbtech
I work at Garrett Turbos, now called Honeywell Turbo Technologies which there so proud of. When Cliff Garrett Owned Garrett He used to brown bag his lunch everyday and cared for a quality Product. If he knew what Honeywell has done now he would turn over in his grave. Honeywell bought Garrett In 1998 or 1999. After this they opened up a turbo testing lab in shanghai China and quickly moved there turbo overhaul to Mexicali Mexico, quickly after Garrett overhaul went belly-up. So they moved there whole production to Mexicali Mexico, as if that first failure was not a sign.

Garrett Turbos made a quality product for a fair price. A turbo is a precision instrument. Garrett turbos was part of Garrett Air Research (on 190th st. In Torrance ca.) Where they have a huge facility designing turbine engines, and so on. Most of the senior technicians in our main turbo facility (Lomita Blvd Torrance ca) came from our air research. If you’re building jet engines a turbo is not all that difficult. Well Cliff Garrett dies. At that time ALL production of Garrett Turbos was at Lomita Torrance ca. Also all engineering and research was there as well. After we were bought and production was sent to Mexico to save costs. Our production numbers doubled. And cost was cut in half our failure rate tripled. Well who cares Honeywell is making money and lots of it. Turbos are considered Honeywell’s golden egg. They feel that turbos are going to take over big. Which it already has in the diesel market. We make ford diesel turbos, daf, Chevrolet, some Audi, vw, fiat, Perkins. Millions of turbos. And there now all coming from china and Mexico. Well up until lately the company figured if the product was designed in the US and assembled in Mexico we would be ok. Well to further there profit and **** the customer once again....the LAST of what makes turbo American leaves in January 2011. We will close the doors to the Torrance Lab. In Torrance we did all our racing turbos (wrc stuff, Audi racing etc..) then in the garret garage we did the turbos you people buy for your Subaru’s. Actually I take that back. They take turbos that were made on a production line somewhere else in the world, and change a couple of parts on a bench in Torrance (wheels, housing..etc) and send it to you the customer saying it was made in the us.....no it was not it was just repackaged and altered a little. Well as of Jan 2011 all your turbos will be made in Mexico or china or Czech Republic. This is the last Garrett facility in the United States.

We have huge law suits pending due to turbo failures. GM is probably going to leave us.... ford has already sued us. Caterpillar has one of the largest recalls in garret history in the process. Our name is becoming ****. The last few VERY smart guys left in the company are being fired to save costs, but see our profit is already good.....they just want more. Please don’t spend 1500$ on a gt35r. Now that it’s costing Honeywell less to build turbos do you think you will see a smaller bill when you order there product? NO!. They are going to charge you even more for even less. There are countless procedures that are being terminated everyday that made our turbos THE BEST. They keep cutting corner after corner. Did you know that we shave metal off our turbine and compressor housings until they are at the EXTREME minimum needed to contain in the event of failure they are shaving every nickel off the cost of a turbo. Did you know that 2000$ gt40 you buy is all mark up. I won’t dare say the actual cost to the company in fear of a lawsuit but lets just say your sales tax is more then the production cost.

Do not buy these turbos. BorgWarner and mitsu are trying there best to compete with us making a quality product. Honeywell is using its big name to back junky turbos Like Toyota is starting to do. I guarantee in the next 8 months you will see a huge decline in quality. All designing and production is in CHINA AND MEXICO. Honeywell is taking back all there benefits they used to supply us with as employees. That way when they lay us off its as cheap as possible. Instead of saying "Well after we take a hit laying those people off we will make tons" they are just taking back all there benefits so they walk away clean and clear. We used to get a severance package. Which they just took away. One of the head engineers involved in the t3 project. (Designing the first t3) he is still with our company. he was supposed to get 44 weeks of pay if he ever got layed off (30 days and 1 week for every year with the company. 40 years with the company)Due to the new Honeywell rules he gets only 16 weeks pay they stole all that pack after promising it to him for 40 years. My fingers and about to fall off typing all this and I am heated so I don’t care about grammar I’m concerned about you people not supporting a **** company. Take your business elsewhere. Somewhere where you will get what your money pays for. Have a nice day and don’t forget if you hear the name HTT Honeywell Turbo Technologies Stay away

(They still use the garret stamp on the turbos)

[Preen59]

Corporate greed at it's Elite.

Same thing has been happening over the last 5 or 6 years here at my work (Electrolux refrigeration plant).

We have ****ing ACCOUNTANTS driving engineering projects (I kid you not!). They are continually making the (steel) sheet thinner and thinner. Trying to get away with making the vacuum formed liners thinner.. All because on paper it's cheaper. Not to mention most parts are now coming out of china. 20 years ago they made EVERYTHING in Australia.

Sad thing is that the Government here and elsewhere are too pussy to make the hard decisions to keep this stuff within our shores.

[Umai Naa!!]

I noticed disticnt changes at Garrett's base in Sydney when I was dealing with them back in '06/'07.

Initially, I'd ring them direct and speak to guys that knew their stuff, offer advice, and would actually help you. Within months, all this disappeared, and I had to go through a receptionist, who sounded like her office was based somewhere off-shore, before waiting for tens of minutes on end to speak to someone in logistics, who would then speak to a supervisor to who would then advise as to whether there was someone I could talk to or not.

In the end, I gave up and began dealing with GCG.

[Mrk_Mickey]

This makes me wonder what will happen when everyone is doing everything from Asia. I mean, they can only hold so many factories for so many things, are they just going to take over the world? It's wrong in my eyes.

[gldgti]

Hah, there you go, another corporate takeover and send a company to the poo story. I guess it doenst matter if you buy a chinese ebay turbo or a "Genuine" Garrett anymore afterall.

Preeny, I can sympathise - we see it all the time that manufacturing is being driven into the ground by bean counters, and as such all of the technical proficientcy and knowledge is swept by the wayside because of "the bottom line". What a joke.

Companies used to be run and owned by the guys who knew about what was being manufactured, and were proud of it. It wasnt so important that the profit margin was huge - rather that the product was quality, the brand name was respected and the employees were looked after well. Nobody spent all day trying to figure out how to screw the company over to pay the shareholders bigger dividends - why would they? But I guess when your a board member or accountant that gets shoved around from one company to the next, you have no reason to be loyal.

Well, rant over. I gotta say thats another dissappointing story and I'll certianly be looking to support Borg Warner/KKK in thefuture over Garrett/Honeywell.

Certainly its provide evidence as to why so many turbo failures are occurring on the newer model VW TDI's with the GT-15V and such.

[coastie]

Is the author one of the employees about to get fired? Got to love the disgruntled employee getting their own back via the web.

[mikepologti]

its trully sad to hear this. fingers crossed borg warner can compete and still stay a quality company.