Chinese Clones Sure Look Good?

See for yourself.
But . . . the only thing I have to gauge the quality with is what I see coming out of Harbor Freight.
This company has been selling these for years so someone has to be buying them?
$1800 delivered for a new 18 HP motor that appears to be a Nissan/Tohatsu knock off.

Can you get parts and service?

Parts availability seems to be enormous from the aliexpress website including Yamaha, Nissan and the like. Free shipping on most things doesn't hurt either.
Not selling them but they sure look tempting.
Service? If you're not doing your own on these simple engines maybe they are not for you?
I'm running a 30 y.o. Nissan that looks just like one of these clones inside and out.
That being said . . . I'm running $1100 Briggs & Stratton Racing World Formula kart engines that Harbor Freight sells the chinese knockoff Predator for about $120

I'd want to hear one run before I even gave it a 2nd thought.

I would not run one of those Chinese beer cans on my boat if it was free.


CMOS

At my company we've looked at sewing machines made in China several times. Super cheap, and they look exactly like a Singer or Juki.... but the internals are garbage. They fall apart almost immediately and need constant work to keep them going.

I'm not saying that's for sure what you'll get on an outboard, but it is pretty much the Chinese game plan for all products. They know they can't sell them unless they're half the price... To get to half the price they use marginal parts wherever they can.

PATRIOT said:

Parts availability seems to be enormous from the aliexpress website including Yamaha, Nissan and the like. Free shipping on most things doesn't hurt either.
Not selling them but they sure look tempting.
Service? If you're not doing your own on these simple engines maybe they are not for you?
I'm running a 30 y.o. Nissan that looks just like one of these clones inside and out.
That being said . . . I'm running $1100 Briggs & Stratton Racing World Formula kart engines that Harbor Freight sells the chinese knockoff Predator for about $120

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If you know Karts then you know Burris Racing. Mike Burris brought the Yamaha 20hp YF200R1 kart motor to fruition. Same block that the Kohler 6.5 used and was in 2wd Rokon motorcycles. I built and sold 20 of his engines built to about 12hp to put in the slow Rokons. I still have one and it runs great. Before long the $99 harbor freight was being souped up. For the consumer they could buy a bulletproof Yamaha for $1400 from me or buy a Prededor and soup it up for a couple hundred more. Was mine worth 1100 more? You bet it was but for $300 you could get power for a lot less. I gave up but had my fun and made a few bucks. I still have one in a box that I'll use in a bike or put on a mud motor kit. 6.5hp mud motor tweeked to 15 would work.

PATRIOT said:

$1800 delivered for a new 18 HP motor that appears to be a Nissan/Tohatsu knock off.

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It always makes me a bit sad when I see someone considering doing business with a thief. Whether a person is buying stolen property at that local garage sale that never closes, or the big weekend flea market in the next town, or from Craigslist. Buying stolen property is buying stolen property.
The Chinese? They steal intellectual property and promote patent infringements. Under their law they can steal any idea or design from anybody in any country they want. Since the industrial complex is under government control, the government does not pass laws to stop this theft. And here we are discussing purchasing one of the products.
As an artist I have a piece of art that is reproduced in China millions times a year. A low res copy was downloaded off the internet, my copy-write information removed and it was turned into art for a cereal box. Totally legal in China, the land of theft.

Doc Arroyo said:

PATRIOT said:

$1800 delivered for a new 18 HP motor that appears to be a Nissan/Tohatsu knock off.

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It always makes me a bit sad when I see someone considering doing business with a thief. Whether a person is buying stolen property at that local garage sale that never closes, or the big weekend flea market in the next town, or from Craigslist. Buying stolen property is buying stolen property.
The Chinese? They steal intellectual property and promote patent infringements. Under their law they can steal any idea or design from anybody in any country they want. Since the industrial complex is under government control, the government does not pass laws to stop this theft. And here we are discussing purchasing one of the products.
As an artist I have a piece of art that is reproduced in China millions times a year. A low res copy was downloaded off the internet, my copy-write information removed and it was turned into art for a cereal box. Totally legal in China, the land of theft.

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Some companies have went after them and actually stopped them from sending their crap back here.

https://www.bowhunting.com/news/2017/06/09/feradyne-wins-sweeping-ban-imports-rage-broadhead-knock-offs/

Lots of right wing Kool-aid going around these days. Yes, there are Chinese knock-offs out there for designer nonsense - but motors? Come on, be reasonable and exercise some degree of critical reasoning. The tooling investment alone to produce a motor let alone the design time and everything else that goes into it - much more likely they're produced in the same plants as produce the name brand motor without the name brand.

"Generic" is the term used with medicine all the time that no one seems to have an issue with, why get your feathers ruffled over other manufactured goods besides pharma? You don't see Nissan/Tohatsu etc. suing the retailers of these motors to stop their sale? Why? Hmm...again, critical reasoning? Oh - yes, they're not suing because either they're not being wronged or they have no grounds on which to file suit. Having a contract with the manufacturer to produce unbranded material would satisfy either possibility.

That said, even if it's a legit clone of the outboard there are so many places they can cut corners to lower costs that won't be evident until long after the sale is done - too many for me to offer up $$$ without a warranty and a reputation to back it and it looks like this brand lacks both.

This isn't theft, it's simply capitalism. People dumb enough to turn over currency for inferior quality products because they're too ignorant to consider anything beyond the price tag are just getting what their laziness and indifference deserves.

If you've got about 35 minutes, this is a good mini-movie to watch about corporate espionage.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=caPkC_lagbo

Yeti was another big loser to Chinese knockoffs. You can get the knockoff Yeti Rambler tumbler from Walmart for about $9. Of course, the plastic lids are of inferior quality as compared to the Yeti's.

I found a link for Sheddies Warehouse in NZ. They're selling them at https://mightyboy.co.nz/aiqidi-18-hp-2-stroke-outboard-motor/

They take a Yamaha tank and...

''BY SHEDDIES NOVEMBER 29, 2015 - 2:44 PM
This outboard is a Yamaha clone and, as far as I am aware, parts are interchangeable. "

Patents only last for a certain time period. The same is true for sewing machines. All the Chinese made machines and parts are interchangeable with Singer or Juki as well. Question is what quality the main bearings and precision machining is. To get down to that price point the had to cut corners at every possible opportunity...

They can be renewed indefinitely, but it comes a time as to if it is worth the cost to continue to do so.

Shaugh said:

... Question is what quality the main bearings and precision machining is. To get down to that price point the had to cut corners at every possible opportunity...

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Can you imagine how many opportunities there are to cut corners in an outboard and still be interchangeable? Lower quality castings for one, certainly machining tolerances, fastener quality, electronic components, paints, gaskets & seals...two motors could look exactly the same and run just fine on day 1 & by the end of the 1st season one could have compression loss with fluids leaking left & right and the other would barely even be broken in. If you knew they used the same machined components then you could probably make do swapping parts out for quality parts over time, but what you save up front you could pay (and then some) in replacement parts cost, inconvenience and time down the road.

nccatfisher said:

They can be renewed indefinitely, but it comes a time as to if it is worth the cost to continue to do so.

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You're probably thinking of trademarks. In the US patents have a 20 year life, though there are fees due over the course of the patent life to maintain it or it becomes expired at an earlier date.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Term_of_patent_in_the_United_States

That's why everything you see from China looks 20 years old.

onthewater102 said:

This isn't theft, it's simply capitalism.

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It is theft when intellectual property is stolen. The big companies continually go after Chinese ripoffs, yet rarely win in any real way. I have seen an Apple computer and a Honda outboard knockoff. The Honda was actually more of a counterfeit. It had Honda badging, but the model number was messed up . Both products were copies part for part except with cheap parts including aluminum in place of steel in the case of the outboard. Both had owners manuals...photocopies of the Apple and Honda owners manuals. Total and unadulterated theft.

Doc Arroyo said:

It is theft when intellectual property is stolen. The big companies continually go after Chinese ripoffs, yet rarely win in any real way. I have seen an Apple computer and a Honda outboard knockoff. The Honda was actually more of a counterfeit. It had Honda badging, but the model number was messed up . Both products were copies part for part except with cheap parts including aluminum in place of steel in the case of the outboard. Both had owners manuals...photocopies of the Apple and Honda owners manuals. Total and unadulterated theft.

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Calm down there Herr Donald - no one but you is asserting theft here. PATRIOT already mentioned he has a 30 yr old unit that looks exactly the same as the motor in question - which even if copied directly puts it long past any patent on the design would have expired and they are not miss-using any trademarks on the housing.

To steal in "intellectual property" you would somehow have to usurp the ownership of the patent or trademark, which is never the case with counterfeiting. By making counterfeit goods they may be ignoring or infringing upon intellectual property rights, but they're not "stealing" anything.

There is a further option: that the patent-holder is actually producing the off brand product to cater to a certain market, whether on price, geography or otherwise.

Further, it would not be unforeseeable if an off-brand product was used to circumvent an agency or distributorship agreement in a given country or region.

Butthead said:

If you've got about 35 minutes, this is a good mini-movie to watch about corporate espionage.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=caPkC_lagbo

Yeti was another big loser to Chinese knockoffs. You can get the knockoff Yeti Rambler tumbler from Walmart for about $9. Of course, the plastic lids are of inferior quality as compared to the Yeti's.

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I'm pretty sure the yeti tumblers are Chinese made also,only some of the coolers are made here,some parts of the coolers. Their marketing dept is great. If I were on the marketing team of Grizzly coolers which by the way are 100% made in the USA I would be using that greatly in my advertising of the grizzlys.