Has any body heard anything about these outboards good or bad or does anybody have one and can give a first hand report on how they go, its not for me but a mate is considering getting one as they are a fair bit cheaper than your other well known brands.
cheers pete...
where will he get parts in 4 years time ?? That is my problem with all these imports without brandname backing. It is crap in most cases that a brandname part will fit and many brandname manufacturers are stopping stocking some older parts as the model turnover is greater now.
If these new brands commited to a wharehouse and representation for 10 yeras teh cheaper price may be worth it and not such a gamble.
Its worth spending the extra money and buy a merc or similar 5 year warranty and reputable company. when i was a young buck my mates dad used to say " you cant afford to buy cheap" which i reckon is spot on especially when its something that you require reliability from, I'd sooner buy an older Johnson or evinrude before i bought a brand new Zongshen, they are like an energizer bunny they keep going and going and going
Even though I agree with what has been said, we must remember there was a time (and not that long ago) that Yamaha was a "new" player in the outboard market, and also hark back to the big "brand names" that tried and failed miserably as in Volvo, even Chrysler, then there is the come and go, then come back again as one of the best, like Suzuki! the only real "old time" brands on the market are Evinrude/Johnson and Mercury, the rest are ,by comparison, "new" With all that out of the way, personally I would not be buying any cheap Chinese brand YET! down the track, who knows what we will see, brands like Hyundi and such are now common place, and so might be Zongshen, sounds to me like an Asian pronunciation of Johnson to me, anyone else see that?
Zongshen was founded in 1992 and now consists of 52 wholly owned or part owned subsidiary companies. The Zongshen group has over 18,000 employees, and the total assets or worth over 4 billion Yuan. It is one of the five largest motorcycle manufacturers in China.
They are presently in partnerships with Harley Davidson and Piaggio
(supposedly)
they are all so running on the moto 250 race scene from memory.
The thing is, there are so many companies we never hear of that have produced cars and bikes since the 50's and 60's that we will never see. i think the grass routes of this company could be one of them, that is now moving into the world wide scene.
I cant say good or bad but your friend can give us updates
i know they all so have a big dealership in the usa (FL) but thats in the bike scene.
keep us posted on what the outboard is like can you ?
yep, true, lots of places make "stuff" for other branded companies, places like (say) Samsung) used to just manufacture products for others, Philips and a few other well known brands included, and build to a quality specified by the buyer, Yamaha was exactly the same, they were only sold as Mariners when they hit the scene, I guess they must have seen the potential and branded them for themselves, the rest is of course history
My comments are about the long term back up service.
The yamaha example fails to say that Yamaha before they bought out their marine stuff already had a reputation with bikes and so on and a dealer network that they supported. Honda same thing.
Honda , yami etc all had a reputation that took years to develop and they would not lightly put that profitable business at risk. A new company doesn't have that burden of history and reputation so if they don't sell enough or get market share in a period they determin to be profitable and if not walk away.
We could all name heaps of brands that have done this and many had decent products but market wasn't big enough, distribution was too expensive , restrictive trade practices and so on may have been their downfall or a crap product originally designed for a different market. Think of all the little diesel cars we didn't get because of out diesel and the few we did get that were a service cost nightmare because of our diesel.
I guess when the new companies come out and show testing in aussie conditions with aussie fuels and a commitment of 10 years they may get a start . If they don't have the balls to put it upfront I'm not prepared to give em the time of day and be a guinea pig in a critical application on a boat at the prices they currently do. Half the price again and I might take a punt on the 8 foot tender ( it has oars and can be rowed) .
Many early car introductions in the past used the first buyers as guinea pigs and picked a market segment that would put up with a lot of the unreliability as it was all covered by warranty but many would not buy that brand again later.
Go and try and get parts or service on the cheap imported no name wipper snippers or lawnmowers as most people won't even look at em unles it is a simple known brand carby issue.
And that is exactly how the Japs bought their way into the electronics industry and the car industry, then the Koreans did the same thing and now the Chinese.Originally Posted by cormorant
People buy on price unless they have a good reason not to. Make it cheap enough and enough people will buy it and market share builds from there. Many of the bigger chinese firms have been building engines and parts OEM for years.
The guinea pig principle certainly applies but what they (factories) learn from those first bad experiences allows them to rapidly improve and so long as the price stays low market share grows.
Building a reputation with small outboards seems to be the successful market entry method all of the other makers have used, people will be unlikely to buy big engines that are unknown, but smaller ones they will take a punt on.
IMO within 5 years we will have 100+ HP chinese engines.... and within 10 we will have 200+ HP - and they will sell because of the price and the reputation of the smaller engines.
I would even be confident enough to take on an agency.
Sometimes its better to look like an idiot than to open ones mouth and remove all doubt.
i don't know how their outboard parts go, but a lot of parts for their cheap motorcycles interchange with other japanese manufacturer's parts. if the price is right why not give them a go, it's all risk.
So as long as the purchaser goes in with the realization that you get what you pay for,then all good.
DoNotFeedTheTrollsAandBelligerent
I keep hearing them say that but get it in writing from them. I don't believe it in many cases I looked into.
That said in thailand there is thousands of them ( but try working out names and models) so as long as you can ebay or if they sell enough here even if the parent company buggers off someone will import parts. Generic suppliers will carry some consumable parts but it is that odd part that wrecks your day.
I know one company is doing a old kawasaki 250cc air cooled from the mid 1980's. I can tell you now that many parts that are not used on more current models are unavaliable and many of the parts on th bike aren't tha originals as brakes are different and so on. Look similar but are not 100% interchangable.
Of course there are the classic examples of the hindustan car being the old morris , austin? in India where they bought all the original tooling and of course the royal enfield bike but that has now been seriously updated from 350cc to 500cc injected.
Outboard Motor Manufacturers
Ultra Shallow Running Outboards or Similar Drives
- Alpha Int'L Industrial & Trading Co., Ltd. - Chinese Outboard manufacturer
- ATima - Chinese Outboard
- Bombardier makes Evinrude and Johnson
- Briggs & Stratton Gas & Electric Outboards small outboards
- British Seagull Outboards no longer made
- Chongqing Fano Development Company - small outboard from China
- Chuanlaoda outboards - small outboards from China
- Gull Outboards small outboards
- Hidea small outboards from Hangzhou Hidea Power Machinery Co. of China
- Honda Marine
- Hyfong small outboards built by Zhejiang Shunfeng Power Machinery Manufacture Co. in China. Also at Hyfong Outboards
- Mainbon Shanghai Mainbon Industry Co. very small outboard from China
- Mercury Marine
- Marine Power Mercury's European group
- Nautic Outboards
- Nissan
- Outboards.cn shows several Star and Sail outboards
- ParsunEngines.com Chinese outboards
- Ruggerini diesel outboards from Italy
- Selva Marine Outboards Italy
- Sail Chinese outboards built by Jiangsu Tiger Yacht Manufacture Co.
- Shunfeng small outboards built by Zhejiang Shunfeng Power Machinery Manufacture Co. in China
- Sprint Marine outboards from China
- Star - Chinese outboards
- Sun Jin Dynamics small outboards from Korea
- Suzuki U.S. U.S. corporate site
- Suzuki Japan corporate site
- Yamaha-Motor North America Page Yamaha still sells the hydradrive primarily outside the U.S.
- Yamaha-Motor European Page
- Yamaha-Motor Japanese Page
- Yanmar diesel outboards no longer made
- Zongshen by Chongqing Zongshen - Selva Marine (joint venture between Chongqing Zongshen Industrial Group and Selva Marine) small outboards from China
- Zongshen also called Chongqing Zongshen, small gas and diesel outboards from China
- Marine-Outboards.Com pricing information for several OB lines
- <A href="http://www.boghogmudmotors.com/">Bog Hog Mud Motors very shallow running
- Go-Devil Shallow running outboard
- ProDrive Shallow Water Outboards mud boat drives
- Scavenger Backwater Motors (shallow water running)
- Stump-Jumper shallow running outboard
- Taiwan Marine Engine (TME) outboards
- Takt Outboard - small outboard from China
- Tanaka small outboard motors from Japan
- Tayako Motors - small outboard from Japan
the same when hyundai hit the market here. the reason they were so cheap is everything is done in house and they make some of the pretty big tankers.
maybe this will be a wait and see. i mean after all whos to say they are not funneling funds back to other projects such as the race scene...
And even if they fail here as a supplier and pull out of aus, there is no reason the dealer will not be able to still get the parts and support from hq. as long as they dont go broke that is. but looking at the size of the company i dont think it likely,. NOT impossible i know. when you look at it the biggest probs with engines are electrics followed by rings, pistons seals and bearings. seals and bearings you can get anywhere.
a risk? yes.. big risk? i dont think so.
and farrrk, we're not talking about mega bucks here, $2k for a 2S 30hp tiller steer. I'd be giving one a go, a 2S is a pretty simple thing.
I am all for buying on brand name, BUT I am the first to admit that the service levels and quality from alot of big names isnt what it used to be.
There was a thread a while back on fridges (camping section) old mate had an engel and died after only a couple of years, or all the people on here that have had trouble with their Quintex boats.
Just because you pay more form something doesnt mean it is the best, I think the gap is getting closer.
Me, no I wouldnt buy a zongshen... or whatever else that has no real history in Australia for that matter, but if you are trying to save a few dollars, it may be a better option than buying a secondhand Yamaha (or other big name)
I just purchased a Warn winch for my 4wd, at over double the price of everything else on the market. Is it worth it.... probably not!
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