You are right, they look exactly the same. Except one is much cheaper.

Here is how it works. TeraFlex engineers design and build a tire carrier. TeraFlex manufacturing contracts with a Chinese company to have the tire carrier mass produced. The specifications are sent to China where the factory builds the product and sends it back to TeraFlex to sell. Then the factory turns around and builds a bunch with their own logo on it and they ship it back here to sell. The engineering cost nothing so they can sell it for less.

I have seen this exact same thing in the electronics industry. A Chinese factory will produce Cisco routers by day and by night they make some for themselves. The copies are usually indistinguishable from the real thing. At least with electronics in the US we can sometimes tell the difference because they don't have our software to install. Sometimes they build their own software with just a little something special for the US market so they can exploit the device in the future.

I guess you can make the argument that the company that sells the cheaper product should get your business. But what happens when TeraFlex engineers and fabricators are out of work because the company has gone bust?

 

Nothing wrong with Smittybilt, my X2O-10 Comp Gen2 looks and works awesome.
Lifetime mechanical and 5 yr electrical warranty, can' beat that. I paid less than half of the Zeon price from Quadratec.
And as far as the Chinese built stuff, I fought in SE Asia for 4 years in the late '60's, early '70's, and for less than half the price, it doesn't bother me. Half the Warn stuff is made in China anyway. Don't get me wrong, I like Warn, hell, I've still got the old 8274 I bought in the mid '70's, just not willing to spend twice the money.

 

I'm not worried about TeraFlex. I have spent plenty of money on their products. I Just paid over $1400 for their Adjustable shocks and you know it doesn't cost them half that to produce that product. In the retail business if you don't make over a 50% markup its almost not worth selling because of overhead costs. I'm sure people will buy more TeraFlex Stuff because of the Brand name and service. But whats the difference when you buy a supermarket brand of Beans vs DelMonte? Both come form the same plant with small differences like sodium content but its still beans at the end of the day.

 

Heck my gears and LED light bar went out before my crappybilt bumpers and rock sliders. lol

 

I bet you had a real nice set of Yukon made in the USA gears too......lol

 

All nice info. My buddy has all smittybilt stuff on his JK as well. Only thing I don't like is the sliders, but they work for the mild wheeling we have done so far.

I like supporting the locals as much as I can. I was just inquiring about the Smitty but didn't realize they were in the same price point as the USA companies like JCR or Ace, etc.

Anyway JCR was what I decided on.

 

Yeah, Yukon it was lol.

 

Wheeling at all hard with 4.88 gears in a Dana 30 on 35" tires will do that. The ring and pinion are too small to handle that amount of stress for long.

 

Wheeling hard in anything will break something. Guy I know just broke his TF60 Front R&P running 37s.

I only had 20k on my set before going out.

 

I bought my Yukon gears from 4ws and purchased the extra no questions lifetime through them. It was like an extra $50. I'm running 4.88s in a 30 too