I will certainly concede that China has a way to go as far as consistency is concerned, but they have made huge leaps forward in quality over the last couple decades.
They are now the
#1 producer of CNC-made parts in the world and they DO have state-of-the art factories with the best available milling machines doing the majority of that work.
I very seriously doubt that ANY children, unskilled and/or uneducated workers are operating CNC milling machines. And a Mom & Pop CNC operation running out of a shack somewhere would be a rarity. Leasing machines would be out of reach for any small business (it's not common in China except in the very large-scale companies) and the cost of a CNC machine isn't within reach of anyone like that. Even the small Prototyping mills cost $6,000 to $12,000. Small verticals cost $35,000 to $50,000 new, larger ones are in the $100,000 to $250,000 range and for large-scale production you're looking at several Million $ to get started.
The stock R3 levers are made from pot metal and have lots of play in them, but will function safely and perfectly well for the projected lifespan of the bike. The Yamaha quality control legal team would not allow otherwise.
Cheap doesn't equate to unsafe in this case, though it may in others. My adjustable Chinese levers may not be the fanciest looking but they look pretty darn good (especially compared to the stock levers) and function perfectly well (the clutch lever even uses the stock R3 bushing and O ring and has almost NO play as fitted). They're T6061-T6 aluminum and cost me $37.00 shipped.
Quality parts CAN be made that don't cost an arm and two legs.
I DO have experience in this area. I once worked for a small local company that made thin metal parts, using multiple processes including elctro-plating, laser cutting and etching. Our primary customers were design engineers and inventors who wanted small batch prototypes made for testing and proof of concept purposes.
Once final designs were produced and tested, most of those were then sent to overseas production facilities (probably 75% to China/Taiwan/Hong Kong) for the large production runs. Once all the set-up was completed by the production engineers in the manufacturing country the first batch of parts was sent back to us for quality control inspection before mass production was signed off on.
Many of the Chinese (and Thai, Indonesian or Malaysian) companies doing the production were ISO 9001 certified and had ongoing quality and safety inspections to ensure consistency. I've been to some of their factories and seen first hand how they make stuff. Including CNC Climate-controlled "Clean Rooms" and other Precision Manufacturing areas. And that was 10 years ago and I know for a fact that they've come a long way since then. It's insulting to the Chinese to say they can't match us, or any other country, in manufacturing. Fortunately, the days of tired old slogans like "The West is the Best & The East is the Least" is long gone and it's mere hubris to believe otherwise.
China isn't a 3rd world country anymore and their manufacturing
can match any country in the world. Does
all of China's manufacturing meet that high standard? Absolutely not! Does all of the U.S.'s manufacturing? Also, not!
Companies like PAZZO and CRG are definitely Boutique Producers (that's the industry term for them, not an attempt by me to insult them), making small batches of product. Great products, sure, but the low production runs equate to high prices. I'd love to have a set of CRG's or PAZZO's on my R3 but I don't have deep pockets. I'd love to own a Ferrari or a Tesla also but I make do with my "lowly" Scion xB. And considering the quality control problems Ferrari & Tesla have had over the years I'd bet my Scion is much more reliable in the long run.
Could China take a set of PAZZOs and make knock-offs with the same quality? Sure, and I'd bet someone in China has done exactly that, as well as someone making an inferior, but still safe, set of cheap counterfeit ones.
There are certainly cases of bad products being made, as in India with the KTM RC390 and Duke 390 wheels, where some were shattering when hitting potholes due to porous castings. This tends to be uncommon and gets corrected very quickly if a company wants to stay in business. Teething problems on new products are the norm and are quickly corrected.
As far as U.S. manufacturing goes, we've been on a downhill trajectory for many years due to the WTO and Free Trade Policies making it more profitable for U.S. companies (read: Corporate Greed) to either move their factories overseas or out-source production from offshore companies.
The number of highly skilled workers in the U.S. is pitifully inadequate and many companies here have had to bring in foreign designers and engineers (on H1-B and L-1 visas) to fill the void. A great many of those come from India and China and are all highly educated and skilled.
I'm sincerely glad that you like your job and care about quality in your work. Good on ya for that! I really mean that. But I think it's ludicrous to think that all, or even most, American workers in manufacturing "care about their job and enjoy what they do". I certainly haven't seen that. Can they still make quality products, sure, since keeping their job depends on it. But, in my experience at least, to most of them it's "just a job & a paycheck".
China has gone through the same timeline as Japan as far as manufacturing goes; from making cheap, shoddy goods to making high quality goods, over a period of a couple decades. Have they finished that transition yet? No, but it's only a matter of time. In the meantime, I still say you can easily get high quality parts for your R3 from Asia.
Let's not overlook the fact that the R3 itself is made in Indonesia, to Yamaha standards, and it's "A Good Piece of Kit"!
Does it have some issues? Sure, but it's a low cost bike that was intended to be a Beginner Biike, built to a price point to be competitive with it's rivals. Still, all in all........
