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Getrag Transmission: German or Chinese?

Bmadda

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This is a tricky topic, it really is. Getrag better have their act together on this one....otherwise, adios! Toyota, Nissan, and BMW utilized their gearboxes and had great success. When Getrag began making crap boxes 2003+, everyone started looking at ZF boxes. What happened? Outsourcing! It is no secret folks....it is what it is!
Its actually the most simple topic on this forum...far more simple than arguing whether "by september" includes the month of September or "by september" ends on August 31. Is the mt88 produced in china? Pretty simple yes or no question. Whether customers have issues w/that is their own decision.
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buildbigboats

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Its actually the most simple topic on this forum...far more simple than arguing whether "by september" includes the month of September or "by september" ends on August 31. Is the mt88 produced in china? Pretty simple yes or no question. Whether customers have issues w/that is their own decision.
Agree..Question is where will the manual transmissions be manufactured?
Read lots of speculation, rumors, attempts at trying to connect the dots based on Google searches etc. Posted request that that question be asked at one of the recent and/or upcoming Bronco events but have not seen a definitive answer from the source...Ford themselves. Would welcome true final answer to put this to rest...so folks will know for certain then can make their decision however they please.
 
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Broncode

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If i recall the 6 speed in the wrangler JK has had a decent amount of issues. I know mine had to be fixed twice for recalls. Not sure about the current JL transmission.
Yeah, but chances are you would still be able to limp your way back home in a Jeep. Jeep transmission or drivetrain issues hardly ever leave their owners stranded. They usually have grinding into gear or noisy transmission issues. I rarely hear about a Jeep manual transmission not bringing an owner back home.

The Jeep auto’s are a different story.
 

colintrax

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Wholeheartedly agree. There is some complete dogshit Chinese products, and there are some Chinese products that are among the best. I’m probably going to get dog piled on for this, but look at harbor freight tools. They’re all made in China, some are junk, and some are incredible. I have one of their high-end socket sets and it is great. I also have one of their low end socket sets and it’s not worth it’s weight in scrap. China can design stuff to fight a price point and quality level but the oversight has to be there.

Personally, for me? I’m going to bet that Getrag is pretty damn meticulous about their QC and that the 7 speed will be built right. But I also don’t think the mustang transmission debacle is all it’s cracked up to be so YMMV.
Check again. Most of the good stuff at Harbor Freight is made in Taiwan. Taiwan makes much higher quality steel than China.
 

Rick Astley

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That video is 5 years old now.

A lot has happened in Chinesium manufacturing in the past 5 years. If the Chinese have proven anything, it's that their generational growth and manufacturing improvements have vastly exceeded the timeline America was capable of.

Of course, they were able to learn from others instead of having to invent the wheel along the way, but now they are streamlining and improving upon where America stood still and said "this is good enough, Made in America!".

According to friends who are in the steel industry (supply, manufacturing, distribution, forming and sales), America has rested on it's laurels and hasn't been adequately re-investing in their steel manufacturing and instead letting foundries age out technologically due to artificial cost controls and lack of competition.

Top Gear had an excellent skit on how far the Chinese auto sector has advanced from building essentially Tuk Tuk's to modern cars in about 20 years. It's really unbelievable.
 

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Broncode

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That video is 5 years old now.

A lot has happened in Chinesium manufacturing in the past 5 years. If the Chinese have proven anything, it's that their generational growth and manufacturing improvements have vastly exceeded the timeline America was capable of.

Of course, they were able to learn from others instead of having to invent the wheel along the way, but now they are streamlining and improving upon where America stood still and said "this is good enough, Made in America!".

According to friends who are in the steel industry (supply, manufacturing, distribution, forming and sales), America has rested on it's laurels and hasn't been adequately re-investing in their steel manufacturing and instead letting foundries age out technologically due to artificial cost controls and lack of competition.

Top Gear had an excellent skit on how far the Chinese auto sector has advanced from building essentially Tuk Tuk's to modern cars in about 20 years. It's really unbelievable.
I disagree. Chinese machining standards may have improved, but their metallurgy methods and standards for forging and casting still sucks. There is a great demo online somewhere where an engineer breaks a cast iron bar made in USA vs a cast iron bar made in China. The results will shock you. Inconsistencies in castings is a norm in China....this is an expensive area of expertise and this is where China cuts corners. So, while I agree with you that China can make something look as shiny and pretty nowadays, it’s what’s inside that matters. USA, Japan, and Germany have mastered these areas.
 

Rick Astley

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I disagree. Chinese machining standards may have improved, but their metallurgy methods and standards for forging and casting still sucks. There is a great demo online somewhere where an engineer breaks a cast iron bar made in USA vs a cast iron bar made in China. The results will shock you. Inconsistencies in castings is a norm in China....this is an expensive area of expertise and this is where China cuts corners. So, while I agree with you that China can make something look as shiny and pretty nowadays, it’s what’s inside that matters. USA, Japan, and Germany have mastered these areas.
I should clarify that the friends in the steel industry buy materials from Taiwan and Vietnam. China doesn't produce equivalent quality castings or metals. Their manufacturing is developing more rapidly than anyone else (but they had a long road to walk in the first place).

We shall see, but usually Getrag will bring in the parts for assembly if they can't trust the nation of assembly for manufacturing. Germans aren't down for that.
 

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My final thoughts on this - Ford has been beating the crap out of these all over the US, including a 4dr with a MT/2.3L which is what I want. Unless we start hearing about issues with the MT in testing I'm sticking with it. My experience with manuals is that they are kind of like electronics these days - if they work for the first few days/weeks they are good to go for years.
 

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I should clarify that the friends in the steel industry buy materials from Taiwan and Vietnam. China doesn't produce equivalent quality castings or metals. Their manufacturing is developing more rapidly than anyone else (but they had a long road to walk in the first place).

We shall see, but usually Getrag will bring in the parts for assembly if they can't trust the nation of assembly for manufacturing. Germans aren't down for that.
Ooo the Germans!

giphy-1.gif
 

N3T

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This is a tricky topic, it really is. Getrag better have their act together on this one....otherwise, adios! Toyota, Nissan, and BMW utilized their gearboxes and had great success. When Getrag began making crap boxes 2003+, everyone started looking at ZF boxes. What happened? Outsourcing! It is no secret folks....it is what it is!
This I wholeheartedly agree with. As a new trans, wherever it’s assembled, could have issues. That’s just standard new car risk - which I’ve never had and does give me the heebie jeebies.

As far as one country doing better than another at assembling things, I do remember the days of hearing how badly VW cars were assembled in Mexico compared to Germany. What wasn’t well known was that in the German assembly plant for each assembler on the line there were three quality ppl checking things. So in reality the assembly process in both plants was shoddy - they were just willing to pay a lot more in the German plant to cover up that fact.
 

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siddious33

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You can do some quick research online and learn China has whole abandoned cities due to to new buildings crumbling. Some countries have banned China made steel because it is trash. China makes trash, they have no building code, integrity or accountability.
Pretty sure the underpopulated cities in China are not because of lax building codes and trashy steel...

The Chinese Government has a big plan to move a huge population of its citizens into urban centers and to have less rural population. As such, they've been investing in all sorts of cities that don't yet have enough of a population to fill them out.

Now, I'm not saying I know all the inner workings of China, mind you. Just saying there has been some pretty fascinating stuff done around these "ghost cities" like Kangbashi:

https://www.cnn.com/style/article/c...o accommodate over,of Ordos in Inner Mongolia.

There have been some moves to ban, or highly tax, Chinese made steel but it's more about trying to keep them from taking over all the market share. They already have a high amount of control over the stainless steel market:

https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/05/19/dont-let-china-steal-your-steel-industry/
 

mC.242

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Possible - but you could argue this both ways, in that the prototypes might not be up to the same level of quality as the production units. There are so many unknowns for the Bronco. I'm just going to jump in head first on what I want and hope for the best.
 

crashmc2

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Four points on all of this;

1: The Getrag design is fantastic.

2: The Chinese still can't get mass produced concrete right after 2,000 years because of an ingrained cultural disbelief in unsupervised QC.
Because of this disbelief in QC through personal honor alone, they are still forced to buy all of their turbine engines from other nations.
They've acquired or stolen all of the technology, but they can't get the 10,000 parts to hold together for even a 1/4 of the time Russian engines do.
So the Chinese buy from the West for civilian turbines, and Russia for military ones.

Having the anyone with these kinds of attitudes make a transmission for export is just begging for trouble.

3: Ford got that trouble in the form of a class action lawsuit from Mustang owners.
Yet FoMoCo still went back to the Chinese vomit bowl for another helping.

4: Either Ford is getting these transmissions for 10 cents on the dollar, or the Middle Kingdom is flying in free hookers and blow every week to Ford executives.
My money's on hookers and blow.

... wait. Not literally
 

SliderJack

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