Camping World Quality

mlts22 wrote:
I've found that it varies. For example, with 30A adapters, there are cheapies which burn out and get hot, but then there are the larger Camco ones (as well as their dogbones) which work well for a long time.

Some products, marine-grade is the only way to go. Especially when it comes to plumbing an electrical work. Costs more, but for items where the labor can mean many man-hours to get to the problem, it is worth it.

All and all product quality as a whole has suffered. I can compare tools from the '80s versus wrenches made now, and the differences are obvious. For tools which were "average" a few decades ago in quality, I'd have to buy MAC or Snap-on today to get the same fit/finish/material work.

Where Sears went wrong was losing their good name and offshoring. Once their products went from top tier US made goods to just another brand off the Chinese slowboat, people just went with cheaper stuff that was at the same quality tier, such as Home Depot or Lowe's house brands, or even the Harbor Freight specials.

Had Sears actually stayed with their "Sears Roebuck & Co." quality name and avoided the mass migration of good making to China, they might be still relevant today.

Your argument might be persuasive as far as it goes and I wholeheartedly agree that if you want fine quality elec or mech or plumbing equipment for your RV Go Marine.

However as for the rest of your post this is the problem with the argument you make:

The reason quality has gone down is NOT because the companies are buying from overseas. It is that the companies whose names are on the products made a conscious decision to lower the quality to save money. The most obvious way to lower the price is to lower the specs.

The price of steel is about the same on the world-wide market so if you spec a certain grade of steel for your wrench the raw material cost is about the same. That means the only two places left to save on that tool is Specs and labor. Tools are very heavy and not cheap to ship. Therefore to help offset the additional shipping costs from overseas my guess is the specs are lowered.

But there is another reason to lower the spec. and that is the rising cost of steel and the other minerals like Chrome that are used in their manufacture.

So again sending the manufacturing to China (if that is indeed where they are made) really has NOTHING to do with this. The Chinese can build the same Craftsman quality that you remember from decades past...but they cant do it if their customer doesn't want it.

I would also remind you that much of the really good products you buy from West Marine and Seattle Fisheries Supply are also MADE IN CHINA.