Cheap new Bosch MAF..Group buy discount potential..

Watch out here.
There is a good percentage of forged stuff around regardless of what the label might say. If this came from Germany I´d probably believe it to be a genuine Bosch MAF only it doesn´t...

Do you have a problem with your car pointing towards the MAF? The ones on the M60/62 I´d not consider problematic as opposed to the wire filament MAF´s in use before those.

Cheers
Reinhard

Are you on a mission to empty your coffers?

The 8 will take enough of it in routine maintenance without looking for ways to spend your hard earned although I am a supporter of preventative maintenance. Do you recall the old Detroit rule "if it ain't broke, don't fix it"

Your car is fabulous and I am looking forward to seeing it at Duxford.

Cheers
Graham

I would never purchase a MAF from ebay and have found nothing but faulty ones from the likes of GSF and ECP.

If you need one, that will probably last another 20 years anyway, buy an OEM one. If you buy a pattern or copy and you end up in a short while with a problem, it could take a lot of cash finding out it is a faulty MAF that you thought was good as it was new. O2 sensors are the same.

Badly false economy on both of those.

8Tech.

Zitat von 8Tech;96759

and have found nothing but faulty ones from the likes of GSF and ECP.

I can understand avoiding eBay replica crap, but why wouldn't you buy Bosch parts through GSF or ECP? They resell OEM parts just like BMW do? ECP particularly turns over hundreds of millions a year so should not be selling knock off parts. I buy all my Bosch parts through retailers like that (if they stock it), is there a reason to avoid them that I don't know about?

Zitat von NickF;96771

I can understand avoiding eBay replica crap, but why wouldn't you buy Bosch parts through GSF or ECP? They resell OEM parts just like BMW do? ECP particularly turns over hundreds of millions a year so should not be selling knock off parts. I buy all my Bosch parts through retailers like that (if they stock it), is there a reason to avoid them that I don't know about?

Hi Nick,

I think that Gerry was probably highlighting the fact that these companies also offer pattern parts as well as OEM at much lower prices. I agree with you that if you are buying Bosch then it will be Bosch and will come with the expected levels of quality assurance.

Cheers
Graham

Ebay is still a great source of lower priced parts.
But as said above you need to make sure the stuff is genuine.

Look on Alibaba. You can buy Chinese copies of anything you care to mention, even Yamaha flutes with options on various "Yamaha" typefaces. (As I found, when looking for one for my daughter)

I once bought a "Bosch" MAF sensor (for a Vauxhall) from ECP that was obviously a clone, that the barrel was not even round and the plastic mesh on the end was all skewed. all the wording (in German) appeared correct, though, but there only a blank rectangle where "Bosch" should be. I returned it immediately. It was a £95 boxed version of the $60 ones on ebay or $15 on alibaba (in quantity).

I was talking to a Tier-1 manufacturer in Germany the other month and they acknowledged a big problem with branded Chinese copies of car parts.

Well, you'd get your money back through paypal, especially for counterfeits. Also, it should be quite obvious if genuine, when compared to the original.

3 out of 3 of the last MAF's purchased from GSF have been faulty, the last one costing me a couple of hundred quid to then diagnose it.

I did a diagnosis on a car and decided it was a faulty MAF.

I fitted one and the fault recurred so I believed it to be faulty so they sent a replacement and the symptoms were the same. Assuming that my diagnosis was incorrect, I spent a whole day trying to locate the fault.

After giving-up, the main dealer took a look and diagnosed the MAF. I said no, they fitted a genuine one and the car was perfect.

£250 in the dealer and a days work later for a fault I diagnosed in the first half hour.

Just because it is Bosch does not mean it is either a brand new Bosch unit or the correct one. The main problem with these is the calibration is often way off, or the sensor has been reconditioned with the wrong internals in the body, often not by Bosch.

Same with the O2 sensors, its not worth the risk.

ECP were recently prosecuted for selling Chinese replicas sold as genuine and surprise, surprise, the company has just been sold.

8Tech.

I have no experience with GSF or ECP, nor Bosch parts on eBay, but you should be very careful with so-called genuine parts on eBay. The Chinese copy everything - including the branding, packaging,... It looks like the real deal but is nothing but crap. The fact that it's sold from the UK doesn't mean the seller doesn't get it from China. I'm not trying to imply all eBay sellers are frauds or that everything from China is bad, but if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

This is especially true for popular electronics. Just try to get an authentic Sandisk memory card or Sennheiser headphone from eBay. The chances that you will end up with a real one are like winning the lottery ...

Good to know, thanks Gerry. I always laboured under the assumption that these were reputable retailers, I'll think twice about using them in the future. I checked on the ECP site and they do list a MAF for the M70, but they require a trade in so they can refurb it. Says it all.

Thanks again.

I sprayed MAF cleaner on mine, didn't make any noticeable difference. There is a chance your attempts to clean them will actually damage them so I'd let sleeping dogs lie....