Q Drive - ECP - CV's and drive shafts

[scam75]

Morning All

You may recall I swapped out my drive shafts complete with new CV's when I had all my gearbox trouble (about 6k miles ago), as it happened my original shafts and CV's were not the problem. ECP supplied me 2 complete shafts and joints for the princely sum of £90 a side. This was discussed at the time and there may have been a sweepstake among the detractors about how long these things would last! Well we got the answer yesterday, 6k miles before a catastrophic CV failure. Accelerating in 1st away from a junction as I passed through about 4k revs the inner OS joint disintegrated!

At first fearing a gearbox failure, as I lost all drive, I was a tad crestfallen. Cruised to a halt and noticed that car behaved properly with clutch engaged in neutral and breathed a sigh of relief. Stuck my head under the back to see a grease packed ball bearing staring at me and noticed a few others along the path I trundled to a halt on! There was nothing at all left connected to the output shaft. Luckily was only half a mile from home so got the car recovered and got to work. Once I got the shaft loosened and removed a further 4 grease covered balls fell out the outer joint! Dug out my old (perfectly fine) shafts and refitted the OS one. Test drive gladly confirmed nothing else had suffered any damage, phew!

The NS shaft is still intact but ran out of time to swap it out, but will do it in the near future.

So it was either a defective joint or that the Q Drive stuff is just made of Plasticine and balsa wood and not fit for purpose. I suspect the latter.

I shall contact ECP and see what they say. My receipt tells me June 18 they were purchased so chances of any recompense are slim but 6k miles is a joke.

Steer clear of these products chaps!

Stuart

 

[blade7]

Swap it over to the other side so it runs in the opposite direction .

 

[scam75]

Great idea! Need to find someone good at jigsaws first

 

[vitesse]

Frankly ,I would have no qualms at all at taking the remaining parts back to ECP-presumably the internal cage broke-it was clearly not fit for purpose,not the correct quality & if it had happened at speed in the wrong place you could have been seriously compromised.
Also they would never find out about quality issues with their products.

I've never had a problem with my local ECP when I take stuff back-if I had ,I would mention Trading Standards.

 

[scam75]

Thanks. I've sent an e-mail, see what comes back. Yes the cage broke, what remains is back in the original box it came in.

Could have been much worse as you say for me and the car.

Stuart

 

[Frenchy]

Made in PRC no doubt, could have been far worse, not good press for cash back you are more than entitled "not fit for purpose"

 

[Waylander]

Stuart

I just had a look as I just updated the price list in PET2

Drive shafts Complete
951 332 038 07 @ £405.84 each Inc VAT, thats genuine Porsche

Considering the CV joints for the S2/Turbo are 951 332 901 00 @ £253.80 each the shaft is a bargian............

so if you were in the mood
GKN Lobro who probably made the originals, at ECP Product Code : 657333130 for the S2/Turbo

with the current discount PAYDAY50
4 Joint Kits would cost you £246.00

or
https://www.trodo.eu/cv-j...-turbo-184kw-11476-cid

4 for £86. mind you that might be like what you already have

 

[edh]

Frazerpart are also worth trying for the CV's

 

[scam75]

I've got 4 decent GKN ones on my original shafts. One shaft is back on the car, other one will be soon. The reason I bought the new ones was a misdiagnosed bad CV when I had gbox issues and the price seemed good for 2 brand new ones, glad I stored the original ones of which all have been replaced with GKN in my ownership, and twice in the case of the one above the exhaust back box which suffers because of heat but it did last about 8 or 9 years that one.

No reply today, see if they get back to me tomorrow. The price does seem too good to be true but you dont think ECP will sell you **** not fit for purpose.............so that needs addressed.

It's worth noting their list price is £161 per side, i think I had a 40 odd % discount code at time of buying but they must still be making money at 90 quid a side so clearly buying them in south of that but it's not on if they're disintegrating!

Stuart

 

[vitesse]

I can't see anyone using other than GKN constant speed joints-they make them in such large quantities having initially produced them for the then new Minis in the mid 50's having perfected how to produce the pressed cage at their Wolverhampton factory-IIRC,I once saw them in production -after that ,GKN set up a new factory just to mass produce them.The investment alone would be huge for copies to be produced.
When we had an 850 Mini in 1969,which I dropped,tuned re-subframed ,resprayed etc I once renewed just the CV joints bought from GKN & they then cost buttons because of the production Engineering that went into them.In fact ,our whole quality of life has depended on the clever engineering that has existed for years.The problem today is that Selling cost bears no simple relationship to factory cost ,let alone production cost.

The exception of course would be Licensed versions where quality control was erratic.[&o]

 

[scam75]

Yes you are correct. What I have most likely purchased is Chinese rubbish and my lesson has been learned. I'm just disappointed in a supposed reputable outlet selling such poor quality stuff. I placed my trust in ECP and was let down.

 

[Waylander]

Had any answers from them yet stuart?

I would be on the phone now to HO, asking why they did not even reply?

 

[scam75]

Not yet Martin, I will escalate it tomorrow. Still being let down it would seem......

 

[scam75]

Well they have authorised a return for both shafts. I've took the other one off now and put the original one back on. Car is fine.

The 2nd removed shaft which although hadn't collapsed, wasn't great upon removal, with bearings departing the cage upon removal. Poor quality stuff.

Fair play however for them authorising a return as they are about 16 months old.

Stuart

 

[vitesse]

Good result ,Stuart-"tongue in cheek" what about the inconvenience & costs to you of the problem having to replace them with the old ones.etc!
Colin.

 

[scam75]

Hi Colin

Yes they do a "quibble" warranty where you can get recompense for garage bills and a replacement part as well as a refund on the faulty parts. I don't have either as I done the work myself and refitted the previous original shafts which have decent GKN cv's on them. In that offer they also threaten you that they have the parts inspected @ £35 per hour which you are liable for if they deem the parts ok. With one destroyed joint and the other 3 all with cage issues I doubt they could deem them ok right enough! But happy enough for a full refund under the circumstances and take the hit for a couple of hours of my time! Good job I kept the old shafts.

Also worth noting my 30 year old shafts look newer now than the Q Drive efforts. They have the usual slight corrosion, paint flaking etc, but the Q Drive ones had shed almost all their paint and turned rusty brown looking. It's also very clear that the rubber gators are far superior in terms of thickness and strength on the GKN joints. Very thin and cheap on Q Drive.

So there we are, you get what you pay for!

Stuart

 

[Frenchy]

Bought a couple of drop links for my daily (BMW X3) from e bay, great price, shit product, the rubbers split after 6 months !
Seller gave me my cash back, still had to spend time changing them out, ECP and others are selling some cheap crap, my mate is a one man band garage mecahanic, fitted a clutch supplied by the customer via e bay, it let go after fitting and cracked the bell housing.
Fair shout to him he honoured the original quote but lost out on the job, some good stuff available for not a lot of money out there, but lots of rubbish....buyer beware.

 

[vitesse]

To be fair to ECP,when you search for a product using your reg as input,generally they give you a choice of product from possibly their Q brand to more expensive Global brands.Some products ,for instance steering shafts ,may only give you the Q product,so it can be -buyer beware-I have used 2 steering shafts -Q branded & was happy with the quality checking visually -of course I couldn't assess the bearing quality but then if they are Chinese made ,so are many other small bearings in mass produced consumer products.
Recently started using CES Ltd again for BMW parts-very competitive ,good brands (Delco for example ) & they supply OE timing /balance belts at much better prices than ECP who supply Continental only.Amazingly low price for a replacement Cat for the BMW-fitted perfectly.[]