Chinese Carbon

Sounds like you're an advertisers dream.  I don't mind paying for product but the brand premium is ridiculous.  I spent time in two Chinese factories this year, in Beijing and Shanghai and the only difference between the stuff I saw manufactured was the stickers on the product.

But there's tremendous paranoia between the Chinese and the Americans right now.  Both countries are massively suspicious and mistrusting of each other.  And with good reason.

The Chinese model isn't built on R&D, it's built on replication.  And they're dammed good at it. Which isn't  a good thing.

Personally I'd rather pay a company in-between.  One that's ethical but doesn't take liberties with the premium it charges for its brand.  I'll let you know if I find one because I haven't yet.

Interesting sides to think about...

the only problem with a no-name carbon frame or wheels is there isn't any recourse if the frame or wheels have cracks or has a structural problem. sure it's cheap, but seems to be a gamble.

I work in the water sports industry, and we have kites, standup paddle boards made in china.

we've run into fakes and sub-standard work over the years. it's hard to keep control on those companies, although overall the problems have been small scale.  our guys watch over the production process and make changes where necessary to guarantee quality and performance.

so my worry would be the "generic" bike parts may or may not conform to the originals they are copying, unless it's really off the same production line.

who knows really ? if you feel like experimenting..

Definitely with you on the warranty issue, if you have a problem then you're done.  Chinese manufacturers pay lip service to customer service but I've yet to find one that takes it seriously enough.  Huge increase in labour costs over the next few years will make the option far less economical although and no other country in the world can take their place.

But in most cases the quality issue isn't there.  The production line is either exactly the same or the whole manufacturing 'process' has been sold to a different factory who can turn out the same product without and still only charge 1/3rd of the branded price because they've 'cheated' on the whole r&d section.

In tough times people just can't / won't pay the premium to support their own economy and China isn't going to be enforcing it's ironic stringent intellectual property laws any time soon. Especially for a US firm.

Governments could help but placing a massive import tax on Chinese manufactured goods but in the short term the effect of that would be everything increasing in price and no-one's going to go for that right now.

How's your dental insurance?

Edit to add: plenty of people have good experiences with non-name brand wheels.  I"m not saying they're not safe, but if you think you're going to have to replace wheels every year or so, one of those failures could be catastrophic.

I've had a set of cheap Chinese carbon wheels for close to 2 years without any issues. I even had them checked out at my bike shop before using them because I had a 30-day return policy...I've also ridden name brand carbon wheels (Zipps)  that cost 4x what I spent on mine. Wanna know what difference I found??

I could afford the Chinese knock-offs.

ETA: Oh, yeah...The other thing I found was that the matte carbon wheels without stickers look oh-so-sexy on my matte carbon frame. (Which is not a no-name brand, but was ironically sent from China)

Good info

keep it coming

there are about 15 guys i ride with that have dogma knockoff frames and love them.  one guy had an issue with a seatpost clamp and it was replaced no problem.  i can get an S5 frame, fork, bottle cages, headset, 1 piece stem-bar combo shipped to my house for $860.  while i would feel better with the real deal, not sure its $3000 better if i end up going that direction  

Gotta admit - I've been following this whole cheap chinese ebay wheels phenomenon on the forums, both here, ST, and several bike forums quite closely. 

While I wholeheartedly agree with the 'buyer beware' situation where these chinese companies usually have pretty much no customer guarantees after a very brief period, which places you at risk of having no replacement for bad manufacturiing, or potentially more importantly, a company to sue of you suffer a catastrophic injury from it, I haven't seen any real situations posted over several years about such failures. 

Sure, there's the occasional post about how someone may have received a damaged item, but those are far outweighed by the number of brand-name damaged items I've seen. Same with carbon frames from China, which seem to have held up remarkably well.

The reality may be such that despite the lesser guarantees/warrantees of carbon wheels/frames, the tolerance of the engineering far exceeds what cyclists subject their equipment to. Else we'd see more than rare failures. 

I still don't own a set of race wheels, but I'd probably be ok with racing on such equipment given what I've seen anecdotally (but over several years). For sure there hasn't been a rash of equipment failures, but again, it only takes one if it's you.

Yeah, I definitely see the appeal of the prices of Chinese stuff.

But, speaking of uncle sam, I don't love the politics of the "freedom-loving" Chinese govt., and I find it sad that every time we buy stuff from them, we're actually funding their delightful political system, one where if you sneeze the wrong way you get 20 years in prison.

I feel politics and politicians have destroyed enough economy.  I leave both out of mine as much as I can.  Supporting myself in this hobby is hard enough without paying 440% higher prices for a set of wheels.  Sure, there's the option of just not having the wheels, but surely this same concept spills over else where. 
If I just randomly stopped having anything to do with Chinese made goods, I'd wouldn't own much of anything anymore.

I understand where you come from.  My main thing here is that peace of mind, for me, shouldn't come with a 440% higher price tag. 
I own a 1995 VW GTi.  Not the safest car on the road.  I could get something safer, perhaps a volvo that costs about 400% more.  I'll pass. 
I assure you that by way of my career path, I am at far more danger of losing my life than if I spend $500 on Chinese made, non-branded carbon fiber wheels. 

Of course, you're assuming that your overpriced branded wheels will never have such a failure.  Just because it's branded doesn't mean it's built any better.