I would trust FungShui as he has had multiple sets of chinese levers with no issues. See how easy you bent the oem, do you want to do that to a $150 set? No, it hurts worse then you just look for a cheap set again.
Thats how I feel with replacing levers lol. Never agian. So back to the cheap ones, I have never had a problem with any of them, and have used them on multiple bikes. There are cheaper ones than the ones OP listed. Mine were $23ish dollars from Hong Kong or China.I would trust FungShui as he has had multiple sets of chinese levers with no issues. See how easy you bent the oem, do you want to do that to a $150 set? No, it hurts worse then you just look for a cheap set again.
I don't think the complaints of chinese levers are about how well the knockoff's dimensions are, but a matter of them retarding or outright braking under normal use which is the main concern. People can do anything they wish. Me personally, I stay far, far away from chinese levers. Aesthetic mods are one thing, if saving money involves risking your life in the process, well good luck with that trade-off. Hope it works in your favor. Like I said, OEM is 13 bucks. If you don't want to spend 150 bucks because you feel like its a waste of money, hence you know yourself and you will most likely drop your bike once again, those OEMs are not only cheap as dirt, you can trust your life with them.Thats how I feel with replacing levers lol. Never agian. So back to the cheap ones, I have never had a problem with any of them, and have used them on multiple bikes. There are cheaper ones than the ones OP listed. Mine were $23ish dollars from Hong Kong or China.
EDIT:
Just to add, in a different forum, we discussed the chinese vs Pazzo lever deal, and one guy took apart a chinese set and it fit his Pazzo lever parts just fine.
Clutch lever here, part #11 , $13OP: I doubt that I will be making the same mistake twice, the drop was out of my control as I had a Deer jump out in front of me, maybe next time I'll be more aware of the situation but when a deer jumps out at you for the first time you freak out. Can someone send me the link to the OEM levers, I have been looking for them and I have not been able to find them. Guys thank you all for your advise!!
This is not 100% accurate. I work in a high precision machine shop in San Diego, and we constantly deal with this issue. Customers always want stuff super cheap because they "can get it made overseas for $XXX". We cost slightly more, but guess what, the quality is different. I can't even tell you how many customers have had us prototype a design and run the first batch, then taken the job and sent it overseas, only to come crawling back a year later with a whole pile of problems and scrap parts made overseas and had us start the job again, and often times, try to rework all the scrap parts they got made in China or Taiwan.CRG levers are made in California (near Santa Cruz) and PAZZO levers are made in Canada (British Columbia), and are great products with unique design and features like infinite adjustment, etc., but they're REALLY pricey, way beyond the time and materials put into them, as is common with any Boutique parts. Five times more expensive never equals five times better quality. You can almost always find unbranded, no-name parts of similar quality for much less and most people would not want to pay for levers that cost the same as 5% of the bike cost.
Many other US companies are selling in-house branded levers that are all made in China and are quality products also, albeit with more generic designs & features.
China has the largest and most modern CNC production in the world and is used by companies all over the world as an outsource manufacturer.
They use the same materials and the same CNC machines as North American manufacturers.
In some cases China out-sources production to other countries like Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and Burma (where wages/production costs are much lower than in China) and these may be of lower quality.
If there is a problem with Chinese-made levers, etc, it's generally an issue with the engineering design and, at least in my experience, that is a rarity.
I've used Chinese-made levers and other parts on my bikes for over 8 years and have never had an issue with any of them. Japanese-made parts are very high quality, too. China is the new Japan.
I HAVE had problems with more than a few American-made parts over the last 4-5 years. "Made in the USA" doesn't necessarily mean 'quality' like it used to.
Shop wisely and you'll get good quality stuff. You don't have to spend $200 or more for a set of high quality levers, unless you want to.