Interesting Post from a Garret employee

[FDavid]

Take this with a grain of salt, could just be a disgruntled employee for all we know.



Quote:

I work at Garrett Turbos, now called Honeywell Turbo Technologies which there so proud of. When Cliff Garrett Owned Garrett He used to brown bag his lunch everyday and cared for a quality Product. If he knew what Honeywell has done now he would turn over in his grave. Honeywell bought Garrett In 1998 or 1999. After this they opened up a turbo testing lab in shanghai China and quickly moved there turbo overhaul to Mexicali Mexico, quickly after Garrett overhaul went belly-up. So they moved there whole production to Mexicali Mexico, as if that first failure was not a sign.



Garrett Turbos made a quality product for a fair price. A turbo is a precision instrument. Garrett turbos was part of Garrett Air Research (on 190th st. In Torrance ca. ) Where they have a huge facility designing turbine engines, and so on. Most of the senior technicians in our main turbo facility (Lomita Blvd Torrance ca) came from our air research. If you're building jet engines a turbo is not all that difficult. Well Cliff Garrett dies. At that time ALL production of Garrett Turbos was at Lomita Torrance ca. Also all engineering and research was there as well. After we were bought and production was sent to Mexico to save costs. Our production numbers doubled. And cost was cut in half our failure rate tripled. Well who cares Honeywell is making money and lots of it. Turbos are considered Honeywell's golden egg. They feel that turbos are going to take over big. Which it already has in the diesel market. We make ford diesel turbos, daf, Chevrolet, some Audi, vw, fiat, Perkins. Millions of turbos. And there now all coming from china and Mexico. Well up until lately the company figured if the product was designed in the US and assembled in Mexico we would be ok. Well to further there profit and **** the customer once again... . the LAST of what makes turbo American leaves in January 2011. We will close the doors to the Torrance Lab. In Torrance we did all our racing turbos (wrc stuff, Audi racing etc. . ) then in the garret garage we did the turbos you people buy for your Subaru's. Actually I take that back. They take turbos that were made on a production line somewhere else in the world, and change a couple of parts on a bench in Torrance (wheels, housing. . etc) and send it to you the customer saying it was made in the us..... no it was not it was just repackaged and altered a little. Well as of Jan 2011 all your turbos will be made in Mexico or china or Czech Republic. This is the last Garrett facility in the United States.



We have huge law suits pending due to turbo failures. GM is probably going to leave us... . ford has already sued us. Caterpillar has one of the largest recalls in garret history in the process. Our name is becoming ****. The last few VERY smart guys left in the company are being fired to save costs, but see our profit is already good..... they just want more. Please don't spend 1500$ on a gt35r. Now that it's costing Honeywell less to build turbos do you think you will see a smaller bill when you order there product? NO!. They are going to charge you even more for even less. There are countless procedures that are being terminated everyday that made our turbos THE BEST. They keep cutting corner after corner. Did you know that we shave metal off our turbine and compressor housings until they are at the EXTREME minimum needed to contain in the event of failure they are shaving every nickel off the cost of a turbo. Did you know that 2000$ gt40 you buy is all mark up. I won't dare say the actual cost to the company in fear of a lawsuit but lets just say your sales tax is more then the production cost.



Do not buy these turbos. BorgWarner and mitsu are trying there best to compete with us making a quality product. Honeywell is using its big name to back junky turbos Like Toyota is starting to do. I guarantee in the next 8 months you will see a huge decline in quality. All designing and production is in CHINA AND MEXICO. Honeywell is taking back all there benefits they used to supply us with as employees. That way when they lay us off its as cheap as possible. Instead of saying "Well after we take a hit laying those people off we will make tons" they are just taking back all there benefits so they walk away clean and clear. We used to get a severance package. Which they just took away. One of the head engineers involved in the t3 project. (Designing the first t3) he is still with our company. he was supposed to get 44 weeks of pay if he ever got layed off (30 days and 1 week for every year with the company. 40 years with the company)Due to the new Honeywell rules he gets only 16 weeks pay they stole all that pack after promising it to him for 40 years. My fingers and about to fall off typing all this and I am heated so I don't care about grammar I'm concerned about you people not supporting a Nazi company. Take your business elsewhere. Somewhere where you will get what your money pays for. Have a nice day and don't forget if you hear the name HTT Honeywell Turbo Technologies Stay away



(They still use the garret stamp on the turbos)

 

[snappy]

Wow! Is it true?

 

[brods]

True or not, unfortunately nothing about that sounds surprising or unique. Business as usual in American manufacturing and it has been going on for decades. If anything is surprising its that Garrett held out so long.

 

[EGroeneveld]

Until people stop buying the cheapest of everything at Walmart or online this will only continue. When people finally (if ever) figure out that Made in America equals employment for themselves, their neighbor, and their family then we can get back to the way things use to be.

 

[TFucili]

Until people stop buying the cheapest of everything at Walmart or online this will only continue. When people finally (if ever) figure out that Made in America equals employment for themselves, their neighbor, and their family then we can get back to the way things use to be.

Absolutely correct, sir! It's all milk and honey versus the greedy local merchant, or the domestic manufacturer, that is until it is your job going down the dumper. How sad that there are more people employed by the government than our whole manufacturing sector, according to an article I read recently.

 

[Gasmasher]

Well wether or not any of this is true I do know that in the last 2 years the turbos on 3500 series caterpillars engines have gone down hill. I have had turbo bearings go out with brand new packages with less than 1500hrs on them. These enginges are a constant speed with generally a constant load so spooling or unspooling of turbos. enginges have a post and prelube cycles that supply oil pressure on them for start up and shut down. All I know is that 2 years ago I didn't stock a 3500 turbo on my service truck, but i do now.

 

[JUeckert]

i have been around garret turbo's for many many years. without a doubt it's the most common turbo in the industrial,commerical and ag field. Throughout the 70's,80's and 90's, having to prematurley replace a garret turbo was just about unheard of , unless there was another issue causing it. starting in 03' ish and latter, premature garret turbo failures have been common from what i have seen. i would say there's more to it then a po'ed employee. .

 

[JUeckert]

Until people stop buying the cheapest of everything at Walmart or online this will only continue. When people finally (if ever) figure out that Made in America equals employment for themselves, their neighbor, and their family then we can get back to the way things use to be.

Well said!!!

 

[rscurtis]

More of the "Home Depot" syndrome.

 

[SHobbs]

This is the issue I raised with Autozone lately. My flasher is on the fritz and Autozone has always carried the same one that was installed in my truck from the factory. The original was a Trico EP27 and had " assembled in America " clearly stamped on it. Now they no longer carry Trico instead they carry whats called Blazer which is made in Taiwan. The Trico is not as long as the Blazer and the Trico can handle L. E. D's the Blazer can't. Also with the Blazer you cannot get the cover on the fuse box completely closed being it is a little longer. Funny thing is they are both the same price, maybe they are getting the Blazer cheap and marking it up for a larger profit who knows.



No one around has the Trico anymore it seems that EVERY parts house is now carrying the Blazer. I did get a call back from a district manager with Autozone about this. I gave him my story and not have heard a word from him since.



This nation is going down the tubes and as far as places like Walmart I AVOID them like a plague and look for the " made in America " mark.

 

[Gary - K7GLD]

Basic problem is, as far as Walmart patronage is concerned, is that most of us, way back in the beginning shopped those stores not because we really NEEDED the cost savings - but because it was cool to GET them as compared to other retail outlets. It was sorta neat to show friends and neighbors that you got YOUR item at a much lower price than THEY did - sort of a game!



Now that the economy has collapsed, the savings are no longer a simple attractive NOVELTY - but for MANY cash-strapped families, an absolute NECESSITY!



How can you now tell a family on unemployment income and food stamps, to only "shop AMERICAN", when they absolutely MUST make every $$$ count?



YUP - like drug addiction - it STARTS as something just for kicks - but soon becomes something you MUST have to survive...

 

[FDavid]

It ticks me off that a company that wants Americans to buy their product feels Americans aren't worth employing

 

[Wingate]

I was involved in some field testing on several experimental G3520 engines equipped with Honeywell turbos... MAN was I EVER glad when we threw those in the recycle dumpster and retro-fitted them with ABB turbos. The engine was on location approx. 2 hours from home, I got a call that one failed, I drove to location, replaced both turbos, got about 1/2 way home and got a call that one of the new ones failed again. For 6 weeks, we put 1-2 turbos a week on, Honeywell came down one day and gathered data and we had a failure while they were on location!!!. . Needless to say, we dropped them and put the ABB's on and never looked back. .

The Honeywells were hard to spool at 60ppm NOX, and were extremely prone to a compressor surge that once started, could not recover from without shutdown and restart.

GasMasher... are you referring to the NSPS A+3 engine???. The only pre-mature failures on those i've seen are from improper setup/tuning???

 

[Skydiver]

Why don't we hear about and see the faces of these American business men who send our labor across the border? Probably because they are busy cruising on their yacht. It cannot keep going as it is. OH WAIT !!! Can we not just print more money?

I was in Academy Sports this past Monday and nearly everything was imported.
It is sad to see the 1/2 mile long cotton mill being torn down right beside where I work.
My oldest son just took a part time job tearing down another type old industry.
Where does it stop?

 

[Gasmasher]

Yea thier WPW and up serial numbers. Cat comes out and sets them up on start up. Most failures have been under warranty. Our emmisons are checked every quarter.

 

[Wingate]

Thats interesting... and kinda alarming. . I bet I've done 200+ new enigne start-ups on WPW, WPS, and WPN's ... (8 cylinder, 12 cylinder, and 16 cylinder) and have never lost a turbo...

I participated in another field follow study where I turned the WPW from 240 PPM NOX to 60 PPM NOX. . as you can imagine, I had to get extremely aggressive with the wastegate and fuel valve. ... Once loaded, I was reading 39-40 IMAP... Even at those extreme conditions, we never lost a turbo on those units...

Do you have any of the JEF's yet??. . Its also known as the G3516B ULB. . (ultra lean burn) Its a 1380hp that is a factory 60ppm... Talk about boost... fully loaded, shes spooling 47-49 IMAP...