The bilstein group
We all love a bargain. The problem is that something priced too good to be true probably is. Aftermarket car parts are prime examples of this and the market of counterfeit and fake products is increasing. Interestingly, typical outlets for these are online marketplace sites.
While CM is not suggesting that all e-commerce is fraught with risk, be wary of being attracted solely by the price
Establishing the quality of spare parts is not always easy for a DIYER,
Rob Marshall visits the recently-built UK HQ of the febi and Blue Print brands to establish how the bilstein group defines and upholds standards.
alone; ask yourself if you can place trust in an unfamiliar seller, and/or even the parts brand. While inexpensive, low quality purchases may not be a false economy, when you don’t have to pay garage labour rates (and this is one reason why many garages are refusing to fit customer-supplied parts), failure of a low-grade steering, suspension, or braking component may have more serious ramifications.
Defining the standard
You may have heard of febi bilstein. It’s a German corporation, known now as the bilstein group, that’s owned by the seventh generation of the same family. It started life 175 years ago making metal hardware, prior to focusing its expertise on screws, nuts and bolts, followed by vehicle parts from the 1950s.
While its ‘febi’ brand was applied initially to spare parts for trucks, its range for passenger cars has expanded considerably into not only suspension and steering components, bushes and engine management but also vehiclespecific items, such as engine rocker boxes and even combined column stalks and steering angle sensor units. Blue Print, febi’s sister brand, commenced its focus on clutch, braking parts, cabin and filtration parts for Asian car brands, though its parts catalogues are growing to cater for European models as well.
As the bilstein group has grown to become an original equipment (OE) matching equivalent for various car manufacturers, its quality remit starts with ‘OE quality’. It highlights, however, that, despite extensive testing of new parts for an unlaunched car model, there may be room for improvements made to those original components, after the
vehicle has been on sale. In such cases, the superseded technical specifications are incorporated into the replacement aftermarket offerings.
To achieve OE quality, the bilstein group relies on established relationships with companies that are original equipment manufacturers (OEMS). An example of this is timing chains made by iwis, or driveshaft couplings from SGF. These businesses may not be allowed by car makers to market replacement parts outside of main dealer networks, yet, imagining the bilstein group as a re-packager of other people’s parts alone is a mistake. To increase the availability of certain parts, while maintaining quality, enhancing choice and reducing prices, the company undertakes complex reverse engineering exercises.
Reverse engineering starts with assessing an original OE component, so that the quality standards cannot deviate from those specified by the car manufacturer. Initially, it is measured by a high-performance 3D laser scanner to an accuracy of between 0.05 and 0.08mm, a process that takes around three hours. The resultant data is processed with a computer-aided design programme and translated into a design drawing.
Several hundred prototype parts are made, based upon the initial measurements, which are spot-checked by those parts being 3D-scanned and their dimensions compared with those of the original. Should the blanks be to the desired specification, further manufacturing processes are carried out, such as milling, drilling and grinding, before further quality tests take place.
In terms of DIY installation, the febi/ Blue Print branded parts will not only perform and last to OE standards but also will be just as easy to fit to the vehicle.
The British contribution to QC
While the bilstein group doesn’t have a British manufacturing base, its new headquarters, based in Chesterfield, Derbyshire, houses not only offices and an impressive automated packing and distribution warehouse, but also its own quality control laboratory.
Adam Hoffman, the company’s UK quality control manager, explained that every one of the 3-10 containers that arrives daily is subject to quality control checks. The tools he has at his disposal are nothing less than impressive.
A sample from every delivered batch of balljoints, for example, has its breakaway torque checked, to confirm that the ball and socket joint is neither too tight, nor loose. If the measurement is out of specification, the whole batch is rejected and returned to the relevant factory overseas.
The continuity of all the electrical components is inspected visually, with the aid of not only a digital microscope but an X-ray facility; this identifies any electrical breaks that may occur within a plastic moulding. Being specialists in rubber-to-metal components, the bilstein group explains that deviations in rubber rigidity especially will alter the handling characteristics of the vehicle.
This is not necessarily a good thing. For example, when rear suspension bush flexibility dictates the characteristics of rear-wheel steering, or when front suspension bush compliance assists with making the car less sensitive to crosswinds, deviating from the OE specification may introduce unwanted traits. The Shore-a hardness tester tends to be used for testing polymers, such as rubber. The Rockwell hardness tester, more suitable for metals, works by applying a set load against the sample and measuring the resultant indentation. A softer metal will display a deeper mark.
All of this is on top of quality control checks performed in the relevant factories. So, when you’re looking to buy replacement aftermarket parts, especially online, can you guarantee that both the brand and the seller can offer the same standards as both febi and Blue Print?