The Fake Auto Parts Pandemic
Toyota’s fake PR agency, the Australian car industry lobby group, recently jumped in the hot tub with the Australian Border Force for high-stakes tactical warfare against an enemy of the state: fake parts.
A high-level bilateral public relations fest between the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries, Toyota and the Australian Border Force has taken place to curtail a mostly imaginary fake auto parts pandemic.
It’s a counterfeit-crime spree. And is not exactly real, ironically. Here’s what allegedly happened, and how we got here…
The FCAI is of course the car industry’s grubby little anti-consumer lobby group in Canberra (in my opinion).
Leaving to one side the self-evident proposition that the FCAI is actually just a counterfeit Toyota accessory itself, these Kingstonian purveyors of the vested interest push two main barrows on fake parts:
Firstly, they want to terrify you into thinking all non-genuine parts might be counterfeit. They’ve blurred this line over and over, disgracefully. So, when your mechanic asks if you want the Ryco filters, the NGK spark plugs, the Nulon fully synthetic oil, the DBA brake rotors and Bendix brake pads, and the Century battery - you’re left wondering if you’ve bought inferior, dangerous knock-off parts that will leave you stranded. All of which is objective bullshit.
In fact, consumers actually need a healthy supply of quality, non-genuine parts, to stop carmakers acting like complete cartel bastards on pricing. Imagine if JB Hi-Fi said you could only buy Sony and Samsung TVs, and only Apple computers.
A quality aftermarket part is often as good as, or better than, the equivalent genuine part - and cheaper. A counterfeit is - for example - a set of brake pads from some third-world sweatshop purporting to be Toyota pads, or something, potentially made from compressed grass clippings. This actually happened >>. Coming off the main straight heading into into turn one...that’s not good.
Proper counterfeiters are, of course, criminals, and we already have laws about that. So the FCAI could just pull its head in and make this distinct difference clear to the public, but of course, (I’m guessing) they sniff the filthy stench of opportunity.
If the car industry just wanted to sell more genuine parts, perhaps, instead of fear mongering and conflating high quality aftermarket parts with being fake, they could just drop their extortionate prices, and actually be cost competitive.
The second agenda for the FCAI, as far as I can tell, is they want you to think this is about public safety. They’re protecting you, allegedly. Because this is, clearly, life and death, and they care so deeply about you.
They don’t want you and your beautiful, hard-earned money to wake up dead. In hell. Having bought a Ryco air filter instead of a ‘branded’ Toyota, or Ford, or Nissan air filter.
That’s everything a consumer could ever dream of, isn’t it? A three-way counterfeit parts pandemic prevention program. Thank the Lord (Toyota) and the FCAI, for keeping us all so safe, in our hour of need.
What would we have done without them?
Official Lobby Group almost-English there, courtesy of FCAI communications which have been dependably poor ever since Lenore buggered off to manage that valet car park. (It’s an industry thing, don’t worry). Everyone thinks they can write really good, until they actually have a crack at it, publicly.
Speaking of critical tools:
Well, let us all be grateful we have Australia’s most impossibly uplifting lobbyist on our side. (Personal opinion.) Tony Weber won’t let those fake parts cartels have their way with you and your cash.
MORE PHONY FAKE PARTS SCANDAL REPORTS
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Another Fiat Chrysler spare parts fiasco and what to do about it >>
Yet another Jeep spare parts and repair price disaster >>
Anatomy of a parts servicing scam (and avoiding it if you’re a woman) >>
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A fake fight fighting fake parts
Mr Weber went on:
Ooh, dear. I’d respectfully suggest they’re not counterfeit criminals, Mr Weber. They’re genuine criminals. And you should know, because what your organisation does with the language is genuinely criminal.
Metaphorically, of course; personal opinion; no allegation of actual criminality is made, because this is satire. Honestly, lighten up.
I did not know you got engaged. Congratulations, dude. That was quick. (I wonder if the deputy prime minister holds some kind of record for unexpected engagements. He’s obviously got something..)
A three-way with Toyota and the FCAI taking a few photos with senior ABF officers in some random warehouse pretending to crack the case. All we need now is a David Caruso lookalike (Tony Weber will do) with Silhouette sunglasses and the opening Roger Daltry scream from The Who’s ‘Won’t Be Fooled Again’.
At this point it behooves me to show you exactly how effectively this war on fake parts is being taken to these evil bastard auto parts counterfeiters, by the aforementioned forces of good. How protected I was, recently, from this counterfeit crime wave, this fake parts pandemic.
I felt compelled to run an experiment, to embed myself in the front line of this war. Not for a moment did I think the FCAI were an ineffective, self-promoting bag of dicks, carrying on a dubious affair with the truth. It would be grossly unfair to suppose I was operating on the presumption that they were full of bullshit. Not at all.
REPORTS TO DELIVER YOU FROM EVIL & FEAR
Disinfecting your car is car industry fear-mongering >>
Consumer Law protection after warranty: knowledge is power >>
Factory warranty doesn't matter when buying your next new car >>
Given the FCAI’s impressive track record of consistency, I would of course extend them the benefit of any doubt, endlessly. It’s just that independent verification of claims is always somewhat helpful. Especially during a war.
To test if this battle was in fact being won, I decided to just go to eBay and see how easy (or hard) it was to be assaulted by some death-dealing random fake part manufactured by a seemingly genuine, international criminal. The result was this box, so helpfully suggested to me by eBay’s multimillion-dollar AI. It was so easy. I’m glad I was protected, thanks.
Sincerely, congratulations to ABF, Toyota and the FCAI for keeping us so fricken safe while also engaged, and thank you to the fake-named eBay retailer in China, whomever you are, for your definitive contribution to testing this hypothesis. I never thought I’d be on the automotive industry’s frontline in Guangzhou.
You know you’re in the presence of a truly A-grade forgery when even the packaging purports to be genuine - at least on the inside. Chinese writing outside; genuine ‘made in Stuttgart’ English allegation on the inside. Talk about yin and yang - mainly yang.
I did have my suspicions when the QR code took me to a broken link on the official Mercedes-Benz Australia home page. Still, for $45, what did I expect?
I don’t know how they did it for the price. Actually, I do. You can certainly feel the quality.
How much worse than genuine can this counterfeit item possibly be? The genuine one was of course the subject of a massive recall last year in the United States because it could cause the power steering, left headlamp and/or wiper motor to malfunction. That’s actually pretty clever, being able to do all that from the grille. Engineered like no other car.
The best or nothing. Recall alert: How demons possessed the LED Mercedes logo >>
Perhaps Daimler was duped, just as I was. Perhaps Mercedes-Benz procured its genuine LED badges off the same filthy counterfeiter on eBay as me. We could both be the real victims here.
You can buy your very own $45 genuine counterfeit Mercedes-Benz Star from eBay.
If we get enough fake CMD stars glowing out there, across Australia, we could be the first developed nation on Earth to acquire herd immunity from Compulsory Masturbatory Disorder. As your next Pry Mincer, I assure you this is one way you can help Make Australia Less Shit. Then we’ll all be able to sing proudly, unmasked, once again, just like in the olden days. Join me now:
Australians all let us rejoice for we are CMD-free. We’ve golden creeks and caravans, and everything that kills. Our land abounds with snakes and sharks, with bogans rich and poor. In history’s page, at every stage, less shit Australia make. Et cetera. Learn the actual words, dude. It’s called ‘patriotism’.
This has been a fake message from a fake newsreader reading a fake teleprompter in a fake studio, illuminated by a fake star, while pretending to be a fake political candidate, singing a fake anthem, running on a fake platform, covering a fake counterfeit parts pandemic highlighted by a fake communications agency.
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